Telecom operators have to pay the first instalment amounting to over 8,000 crore rupees one-time spectrum fee by Tuesday. Talking to AIR, Telecom Secretary R Chandrasekhar said that all the 8 telecom companies have to pay a total of 8,115.68 crore rupees. Vodafone has to pay around 2,093 crore rupees, followed by Airtel 1,758 crore rupees, BSNL 1,282.98 crore rupees and MTNL 916 crore rupees. In the case of Idea Cellular the amount is 810 crore rupees, Aircel 584 crore rupees, Loop Mobile 607 crore rupees and Reliance Communications about 63 crore rupees.

AIR Correspondent reports that in November last year, the government had decided that the telecom operators should pay for holding spectrum above 6.2 MHz retrospectively, from July 2008 to January 1, 2013.

Initially, telecom firms were given 4.4 MHz spectrum along with the licence fee 1,658 crore rupees for their pan-India operations and later they were entitled to get additional 1.8 MHz on fulfilment of subscriber-based criteria.