Kumar Mangalam Birla meets Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash to discuss issue on AGR

Amid speculation of the Department of Telecom may encash bank guarantee over default in payment of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues, Vodafone Idea Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla on Tuesday met Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash here.

Birla, who was also accompanied by Ravinder Takkar, MD & CEO of Vodafone Idea, was closetted with the telecom secretary for nearly one hour.

Emerging out of the meeting, Birla said he "cannot say anything at the moment."

He also refused to respond to queries on whether or not Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) would default on payment of AGR dues or if the company could head towards insolvency.

A financial bank guarantee is equal to two quarters of licence fee and other dues. This amount could be in the range of Rs 5,000 crore each for Airtel and Vodafone Idea.

With the Supreme Court on Monday refused to stop DoT from taking any coercive steps for recovery of dues from Vodafone Idea, top officials of the DOT held meeting to take future course of action on AGR from the telecom firms.

There is also talks in the Ministry about the possibility of encashing bank guarantee given by the telecom firms to recover dues and it sought the legal opinion on this issue.

However, senior advocate Mukul Rohtagi,who represented Vodafone in Supreme Court earlier, told a television channel that, "if the government encashed bank guarantee then the company will have to close. I hope good sense will prevail."

Of the 15 telecom firms, who have to pay around Rs 1. 47 lakh crore AGR dues, three telecom firms Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Tata Teleservices paid total Rs 14,697 crore to Department of Telecom firms as on February 17.

Vodafone Idea on Monday paid Rs 2,500 crore to DoT and promised to pay another Rs 1,000 crore before the end of the week.

Airtel and Tata Tele Services said they will clear the remaining dues before the next date of hearing on March 17 but Vodafone Idea has so far not provided a clear deadline for making all payments.