Special audit gives virtually clean chit to Bharti's accounts

The special audit conducted on leading telecom operator Bharti Airtel at the instance of the government has found no fraud, though it talks of some irregularities as prevalent in the industry.

Though the report submitted to the Department of Telecom (DoT) earlier this week raised certain revenue-specific queries involving an amount of about Rs 100 crore in the multi-billion dollar company, it has given virtually a clean chit to its accounts.

When contacted Sunil Mittal-promoted company said there was nothing wrong with the company's accounting practice.

"The special audit of Bharti Airtel's accounts, commissioned by the DoT, has not found any irregularity in the company's books or loss of revenue fee to the government on account of licence fee," company's top official Manoj Kohli told PTI.

The report is part of the special audit ordered by the government on leading teleocm operators, including Anil Ambani-led RCom, Tata Group's TTSL, Birla's Idea Cellular and Vodafone Essar.

The first audit report submitted in October 2009 were conducted on RCom wherein the auditors had raised certain issues relating to loss of revenue to the exchequer.

"Bharti Airtel has always maintained the highest standards of corporate governance and has displayed the highest regard for the regulatory compliance. The findings of the special auditors appointed by the DoT have validated this belief," Kohli, who is CEO and joint managing director of Bharti Airtel, said.

The auditors have quantified the dealer distribution margins. As per TDSAT judgement, Bharti Airtel pays licence fee only on actual realised revenues in the accounts of a company and not on the end-retail price collected by the retail outlets.

While the auditors have estimated a notional figure of Rs 98 crore of this margin, it has also commented that this quantification is being done only to meet the specific requirement of the DoT.

However, the transaction followed by the company is as per the agreement it has with its distributors and also in line with the current order of TDSAT.

On the issue of maintenance of books of accounts, the auditors have confirmed that the company maintained circle-wise and service-wise accounts.

On the issue of whether the company transferred revenue from one segment to another, the auditors said the transfer of revenue from one segment to another is not designed to take benefit of the arbitrage that exits in the differential lincence fee that is applicable on different lincences.