AGR case: DoT withdraws demand notices for 2006-07 to 2018-19, says Power Grid Corp

Last month, Power Grid Corporation said the DoT had raised a demand of Rs 13,613.66 crore as licence fee for years 2006-07 to 2009-10.

Prior to that in January, the company said the DoT had done provisional assessments for 2014-15 to 2017-18 and also did reassessments for 2012-13 and 2013-14. The DoT had raised additional demand to the tune of Rs 21,954 crore in the past one year by addition of non-telecom revenue as Miscellaneous Income in AGR (Adjusted Gross Revenue), Power Grid had said.

Power Grid had contested those DoT demand notices saying power transmission and its related consultancy business constitute 98 per cent of revenue whereas revenue from telecom segment was only about two per cent.

The Supreme Court's ruling in October last year led the DoT to demand Rs 1.47 lakh crore in unpaid dues on licence fees and spectrum usage charges from telecom companies such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea. The demand was related to a 14-year-old dispute regarding the definition of AGR, which the court agreed should include all kinds of income generated by the telcos.

The DoT had also raised a demand of over Rs 3 lakh crore from non-telecom PSUs such as GAIL, Oil India and Power Grid for telecom licences, which these firms had primarily acquired for internal communication purposes.