Airtel, Jio hail government's reforms for telecom industry, Vodafone Idea to get more time for payment of dues

All telecom reforms will be applied going forward, which means that Indian carriers will still have to pay the outstanding AGR payments to the government.

India’s federal cabinet on Wednesday approved a relief package for its telecom sector including a four-year moratorium on airwaves payments which are due to the government. The deferred payment cycle will begin from October 1, Telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnav noted. Vaishnav said that the government was changing the contentious definition of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) to count only the telecoms revenue. Until now, India had held that even companies’ non-telecoms revenue was part of AGR, which led to a lengthy legal battle leading to a bill of $13 billion for wireless carriers.