Vodafone Idea board also decided to “issue of unsecured and/or secured, non-convertible debentures up to an aggregate amount of ₹15,000 crore, by way of public offering or private placement basis or otherwise, in one or more tranches.” “The total raising of funds shall not exceed ₹25,000 crore,” the company said in BSE filing.

Vodafone Idea posted a loss of ₹25,460 crore in the first quarter. The decline in ARPU in the June quarter to ₹114 was due to lower recharge of tariff plan by customers in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak.

The company owes ₹58,254 crore to the Department of Telecommunications in licence fee, spectrum usage charges, interest and penalties. Of this, it has already paid ₹7,854 crore. The Supreme Court earlier asked telcos to pay 10% of the AGR dues upfront and has set a 10-year payment timeline for the rest of the amount.

Analysts at Motilal Oswal in a note said, “Vodafone should be able to manage the cash flow requirement in FY21 without a price hike, considering that it has a total ₹14100 crore cash requirement in 9MFY21, including capex of ₹6400 crore and an upfront amount of ₹5800 crore for AGR, along with cash interest cost of ₹1900 crore,against ₹5100 crore of operating cash flow(OCF), ₹7100 crore from Vodafone PLC, and ₹4000 from the Bharti Infratel stake sale. Hence, to offset the cash requirement, it would have to take of 22% price hike to manage the funding requirement. The company may require a huge round of price hike, along with a capital raise, to offset the gap”.

Shares of Vodafone Idea extended their gains to the third straight session on Friday. The scrip jumped 51.29% to its fresh 52-week high of ₹13.45 on September 4 from ₹8.89 on September 1.