Government receives Rs 107.91 billion as upfront payments from operators for spectrum acquisition

The government has received Rs 107.91 billion from Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) as the upfront payment for spectrum acquired in the recently concluded auctions. The remaining portion of the total upfront payments of about Rs 290 billion will need to be made by April 8, 2015.

According to the spectrum auction guidelines, the operators have to pay either 25 per cent or 33 per cent of the winning bid amounts within 10 days and the balance in 10 equal installments after a two-year moratorium.

According to the Department of Telecommunications, the upfront payments from telecom operators will be: Bharti Airtel (Rs 78.32 billion), Idea Cellular (Rs 77.90 billion), Vodafone India (Rs 68.67 billion), RJIL (Rs 25.19 billion), Tata Teleservices (Rs 20.13 billion), Reliance Communications (Rs 11.06 billion) and Aircel (Rs 7.42 billion).