There has been a 15% surge in the shares of Vodafone Idea in Thursday’s trade. This was after Vodafone Plc said that they had facilitated $200 million or Rs 1,530 crore in its combined venture with Aditya Birla Group.
This came into light after there were reports that Vodafone Idea has paid the sum as mentioned above to the Government of India as a payment of their license fee, spectrum usage charges for March.
There was a 14.89 percent jump in the scrip with the final value reaching Rs 4.55 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
However, the amount seems less when it is compared to the liability that the company already has. In an earlier decision by the Supreme court, Vodafone Idea, because of its statutory dues had to face over Rs 58,000 crore liability.
In a statement released, the Vodafone Group has said it has “accelerated this payment to provide Vodafone Idea with liquidity to manage its operations, and to support the approximately 300 million Indian citizens who are Vodafone Idea customers as well as the thousands of Vodafone Idea employees during this phase of emergency health measures, taken as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In light of the present scenario, the Vodafone group accelerated the payment, which was dues in September this year. The amount was categorized under the terms of contingent liability mechanism with Vodafone Idea.
This gesture comes when the entire telecom industry is looking at massive Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues to the government. These dues came into the picture when the apex court, in its decision last year, included the revenue from non-core businesses in calculating the AGR of telecom companies.
In concern with this, the Department of Telecommunications had earlier asked the Supreme Court to give relief in payment tenures to three companies- Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and Tata Group.
The individual estimated dues of the three companies stand at, Rs 43,980 crore for Bharti Airtel, Rs 58,254 crore for Vodafone Idea, and Rs 16,798 crore for the Tata group.
