Telecom major Bharti Airtel has prepaid Rs 8,024 crore to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to partly clear deferred liabilities for the spectrum it acquired in the 2015 auction, the company said in a regulatory filing on Monday.

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The Sunil Mittal-led telecom operator informed that the said installments, which are being paid to the telecom department for the spectrum, were paid with an interest of 10 percent, leveraging much lower cost of financing available to it.

"Bharti Airtel…has prepaid Rs 8,024 crore to the Department of Telecom (Government of India) towards part prepayment of deferred liabilities pertaining to spectrum acquired in auction of year 2015,” the company said in a release.

The telecom major had prepaid Rs 8,815 crore in March last year to clear dues of the airwaves it bought in 2015 and Rs 15,519 crore in December 2021 to fully repay dues for spectrum bought in 2014.

The company said it continues to focus on financial flexibility via its capital structure, including optimising the cost of financing and capitalising on all opportunities of significant interest savings, like the latest prepayment.

The country's second-largest telecom provider rolled out 5G services in India in October last year.

In India's $19-billion 5G spectrum auction held in July-August 2022, Airtel secured spectrum worth Rs 43,084 crore ($5.24 billion) out of which it has repaid Rs 8,312 crore.

On Monday, shares of Bharti Airtel Ltd closed 0.68 percent lower at Rs 889 apiece on the NSE. The stock rose 1.12 percent in the last one month. On a year-to-date basis, Airtel shares have risen 9.28 percent, while it rallied 28 percent in the one-year period.