The Department of Telecom has received Rs 8,325 crore from Bharti Airtel as partial payback of the deferred obligations related to spectrum purchased in the 2015 auction, the firm said on Tuesday.
In the March 2015 auctions, the telecom service provider received spectrum valued at Rs 29,129.08 crore. The upfront payment for the spectrum was 47,832.20 crore, but the corporation had already paid Rs 11,374.7 crore for it.
“In an effort to partially prepay the deferred liabilities related to spectrum purchased in the 2015 auction at a 10% interest cost, Bharti Airtel has prepaid Rs 8,325 crore to the Department of Telecom (Government of India),” the firm said in a statement.
According to TRAI statistics, Airtel’s wireless subscriber growth of 3.52 lakh increased the telecom service provider’s customer base to 37.81 crore in October 2023.
In October, Vodafone Idea saw a loss of 20.44 lakh wireless customers, while Reliance Jio, the country’s biggest telecom service provider, attracted 31.59 lakh new consumers.