Bharti Airtel has paid the highest amount of over Rs 974 crore to the government in terms of licence fee and spectrum usage charge for the quarter ended September 30.

Bharti was followed by Vodafone Essar, which has paid a combined amount of Rs 625.55 crore for the quarter.

Bharti paid Rs 692.5 crore as licence fee and Rs 282.08 crore as the spectrum charge for the quarter, as per the data compiled by telecom regulator TRAI.

Meanwhile, new players like Etisalat, Unitech Wireless, Loop STel and Sistema Shyam Teleservices who got the spectrum (radio waves) in 2008, paid Rs 32.62 crore as the spectrum charge and licence fee to the government.

BSNL and MTNL have paid Rs 587.17 crore for the spectrum charges and licence fees.

Other private operators included, Tata Teleservices (Rs 281.41 crore), Idea Cellular (Rs 382.98 crore) and Reliance Communications (Rs 302.33 crore).