The merger between Bharti Airtel and Telenor India has been finally approved by the Department of Telecom (DoT) on Monday.

"All the assets of DoT pertaining to Telenor India, including the unified licence having authorisations for national long distance, international long distance, Internet service provider category 'A' and access services in the licensed service areas of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP (East and West) and Assam, spectrum and any other licences, approvals, clearances, resources, etc, as approved by the NCLT in its order dated March 8 pertaining to the relevant scheme of amalgamation stand transferred to Bharti Airtel," the DoT said in a statement.

It said all the liabilities of the department against Telenor, including the liabilities if quashed, licences/spectrum granted to the Unitech Group companies as approved by the NCLT in its order dated March 8 pertaining to the relevant scheme of amalgamation stand transferred to Airtel.

The DoT also said that the effective date of transfer of all the assets and liabilities pertaining to the department will be as per the scheme of amalgamation approved by the NCLT order of March 8 and the same will be intimated to the DoT by the resultant entity (Airtel) immediately after filing the NCLT order with RoC. 

The Supreme Court had last week rejected DoT’s petition for a security deposit of around Rs 1,700 crore from the companies and directed it to approve the merger.

The guarantee included Rs 1,499 crore for one-time spectrum charge for the radiowaves allocated to Airtel without auction, and over Rs 200 crore for spectrum payment, which Telenor has to make.

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