Spectrum payment notices sent to Jio,Airtel,VIL and Adani group by DoT

If the businesses decide to pay in 20 equal installments, Reliance Jio's first payment would range up to Rs 7,864 crore followed by Bharti Airtel at Rs 3,848 crore. The first tranche for Vodafone Idea would be 1,679 crore.

The Department of Telecommunications(DoT) has sent demand notices to each of the four companies who bought spectrum in the freshly concluded auction, requesting payments by August 16.

The telecoms can choose to make 20 equal yearly payments. The telecom enterprises may also choose to pay the full amount up front or a portion of it (up to a maximum of several full years.)

Market leader Reliance Jio placed the highest bid in the complete auctions of the 5G airwave, offering Rs 88,078 crore, whereas Airtel and Vodafone Idea bought spectrum for a total of Rs 43,084 crore and Rs 18,799 crore respectively.

If the businesses decide to pay in 20 equal installments, Reliance Jio's first payment would range up to Rs 7,864 crore followed by Bharti Airtel at Rs 3,848 crore. The first tranche for Vodafone Idea would be 1,679 crore. The notice published on the DoT website on Saturday stated that Adani Data Networks, the new surprise participation in the competition must pay 18.94 as first installment. Nevertheless, the Adani group is expcted to pay the whole, Rs 212 crore bid sum.

When sending out the demand notices, the DoT also informed the companies that a 2.7 km radius keep-away zone might be required to be given from a location in Gujarat and the Andaman and Nicobar islands which will be defined later. Accordingly, the businesses may be required to relocate their transmitters as needed, in this case, a pro-rata reduction in the overall payment responsibility will be allowed, with effect from the date of such exclusion or date of relocation of transmitter, whichever is of the later date.

The auction of 51,236 MHz that lasted for seven days, ended on Monday last week and earned the government a total of Rs 150,173 crore. A total of 72,098 MHz worth of spectrum has been sold.

The DoT has increased the demand for making payments while also informing businesses about the availability of spectrum in all the blocks in various bands that they have acquired. The firms have been told that not all of the spectrum is available in all the blocks. Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaisnaw said that the department's endeavor to reorganize or harmonize the spectrum has recently been completed.