Sanjay Singh / New Delhi
Aditya Birla Group (ABG) chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla met Union Minister of Telecom Ashwini Vaishnav on Wednesday, amidst the government is reported to be working on a relief package for the telecom sector.
Birla, who had earlier stepped down as chairman of cash-strapped telecom carrier Vodafone Idea (Vi) met the Minister as there is a proposal from the telecom companies to the government to relax payment of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR), besides reduction in licence fees and increasing the payment moratorium for spectrum, purchased in auctions by another two years.
Sources said both Telecom Ministry and the Finance Ministry are working on a relief package for the telecom Ministry. The government is expected to announce relief measures while some relief are expected shortly and other related announcements would follow.
These measures are expected to help companies to get fresh investments.
Earlier, Birla had offered ABG’s stake in Vi to any government-run entity, and had suggested that if the government did not bring out a relief package soon, it could be turning to worst for the telcos
Vodafone Idea had cash and cash equivalents of around Rs 920 crore as of June this year. It is loaded with a debt of Rs 1.9 lakh crore. This besides, Rs 58,254 crore as AGR dues, out of which, it had been to pay back Rs 7,854 crore so far.