Telecom tribunal grants partial stay on Rs 8,300 cr DoT demand from Bharti Airtel for Tata Teleservices merger

New Delhi: Telecom tribunal TDSAT on Thursday granted partial stay on Rs 8,300 crore demand raised by the telecom department from Bharti Airtel for approving its merger with Tata Teleservices. The TDSAT has directed “the concerned authorities of the Union of India to take the merger of two companies and licence on record”, subject to stay on one-time spectrum charges (OTSC) demand of around Rs 7,000 crore. The tribunal asked Airtel to submit 50 percent payment of Rs 1,287.97 crore demand raised by DoT as OTSC for Chennai circle licence extension from 30 November 2014 to 27 September 2021. It has directed Airtel to submit around Rs 640 crore for Chennai licence within four weeks. [caption id=“attachment_4285325” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. ThinkStock[/caption] The department had earlier asked Airtel to submit a bank guarantee of around Rs 7,000 crore and immediate payment of Rs 1,287.97 crore before it takes merger of Airtel and Tata consumer mobile business (CMB) on record. As part of the proposed agreement, Airtel will absorb Tata consumer mobile business (CMB) operations in 19 telecom circles (17 under TTSL and 2 under Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd). It also agreed to take over a small portion of the unpaid spectrum liability of Tata Teleservices. The merger will bolster Airtel’s spectrum pool with significant additional 178.5 MHz spectrum in 1800, 2100 and 850 MHz bands, widely used for 4G. The proposed merger will include transfer of all the customers and assets of Tata CMB to Airtel. The matter will come up for the next hearing on July 18, 2019.