Airtel prepays Rs 8,024 cr to DoT for spectrum

Bharti Airtel has prepaid Rs 8,024 crore to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), almost clearing bulk of the dues related to airwaves bought in the 2015 auction.

The move will help India’s second-largest telco save on interest costs annually and boost cash flows even as it rapidly rolls out 5G networks and looks to offer the next-gen mobile broadband services nationally by December.

“Bharti Airtel has prepaid Rs. 8,024 crores to the Department of Telecom (Government of India) towards part prepayment of deferred liabilities pertaining to spectrum acquired in auction of year 2015,” the Sunil Mittal-led telco said in an official statement Monday.

It added that the said instalments had an interest rate of 10% and have been prepaid, leveraging much lower cost financing available to it.“Airtel continues to enjoy access to a well-diversified sources of capital / financing, allowing it to have enhanced financial flexibility in its capital structure including optimised cost of financing using all opportunities for significant interest savings, like this prepayment,” the company said.