Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, said on Thursday that Bharti Airtel received the spectrum allotment letter within hours of making the advance payment to the DoT.
This is the first time that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has handed over a spectrum allotment letter on the day of making the advance payment.
“Airtel paid Rs 8,312.4 crore towards spectrum dues and within hours was provided allotment letter for specified frequency band. E band allocation was as promised with spectrum. No fuss, no follow up, no follow-up action on the corridor. There’s no running around and there’s no longer this ease of doing business at work,” Mittal said in a statement.
The Department of Telecom has received a payment of about Rs. 17,876 crore from service providers – Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Adani Data Network and Vodafone Idea for spectrum won in the recently held auctions.
While all the telecom operators have opted to pay in 20 annual installments, Bharti Airtel has offered Rs. 8,312.4 crores equal to four annual instalments.
“In my more than 30 years of firsthand experience with DoT, this is a first! Business is as it should be. Leadership at work – at the top and at the top of telecom. What a change! Change that can transform this country – a developed Give strength to your dreams of becoming a nation,” Mittal said.
Airtel achieved 19,867.8 MHz spectrum by acquiring a pan-India footprint of 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands and opted to purchase radio waves in the low and mid band spectrum.
In the country’s biggest ever auction of telecom spectrum, a record Rs. 1.5 lakh crore bid, in which Mukesh Ambani’s Jio took nearly half of all airwaves for Rs. 87,946.93 crore bid.
Reliance Jio has paid Rs. 7,864.78 crore, Vodafone Idea Rs. 1,679.98 crore and Adani Data Networks Rs 18.94 crore.
Richest Indian Gautam Adani’s conglomerate has made a bid of Rs. 211.86 crore for 400 MHz in bands not used for offering public telephony services.
Telecom tycoon Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Bharti Airtel made a successful bid of Rs. 43,039.63 crore, while Vodafone Idea Limited bought spectrum for Rs. 18,786.25 crores.
