Vodafone Idea plunges 7 per cent as telcos may need to pay 10 per cent AGR dues

On Tuesday, the shares of Vodafone Idea plunged as low as 7 per cent as the telecom operators including Bharti Airtel will now have to pay 10 per cent of the total liability of the pending adjusted gross revenue (AGR) by March 31, 2021. Reacting to the news, Vodafone Idea hit an intraday low of Rs 9.66 and Bharti Airtel traded at an intraday low of Rs 460.6 on BSE.

According to Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the operational telecom players are expected to pay Rs 12,921 crore by the end of the financial year 2021, of which, 80 per cent has to be paid by the telecom operators such as Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel. As for Reliance Jio, it has no AGR dues pending.

Despite making a partial payment of Rs 7,854 crore and Rs 18,004 crore by Vodafone Idea and Airtel, respectively, Vodafone Idea will have to pay around Rs 5,825 crore and Bharti Airtel is expected to pay Rs 4,398 crore against the total demand of Rs 58,254 crore and Rs 43,980 crore, respectively.

On the other hand, telecom operators such as BSNL and MTNL are expected to pay Rs 583.5 crore and around Rs 435 crore, respectively, by the end of this financial year.

At around 12.52 pm on Tuesday, Vodafone Idea Limited was trading down by 2.02 per cent at Rs 10.18 and Bharti Airtel was trading up by 1.5 per cent at Rs  474.85 on BSE.