Bharti Airtel pays up Rs 18,000 crore as AGR dues to telecom dept

Bharti Airtel had initially paid Rs 10,000 crore to the DoT on February 17 in compliance with the Supreme Court judgment

Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel on Saturday made a surprise announcement that may alter the ongoing narrative related to adjusted gross revenue (AGR) and the hefty bill of Rs 1.47 trillion slapped on the telecom industry. 

In a regulatory filing with the stock exchanges, Bharti Airtel said it had paid its full and final AGR-linked dues of Rs 18,000 crore to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) after its self-assessment exercise. The government calculation of Airtel’s AGR-linked dues, estimated at Rs 35,500 crore, is almost double of what the telco has handed over.  

The company explained that it had carried out self-assessment from FY