Bharti pumps Rs 2000 cr into expansion

BANGALORE: Bharti Tele-Ventures, a leading telecom group in India, today announced a major expansion plan to connect over 2300 towns in the country within the year 2005. The expansion plan involves addition of six new circles to its existing sixteen, which include J&K, UP-East, West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and Rajasthan.

The new coverage roadmap calls for an investment of Rs. 2000 crore and will extend Bharti’s cellular base to a total of twenty-two states in the country, from the present sixteen.

Said Manoj Kohli, President, Mobility, Bharti Tele-ventures, "The funds will be used to increase network capacity, which will help increase customer base to 11 million and also double call capacity per month to 4 billion call minutes." Apart from this, Kohli adds that this will also pave way for implementing the latest technologies and software platforms for all its existing as well as the new circles.

Quoting COAI reports, he said that as of Feb'2004, approximately more than 91 per cent of India’s total number of mobile subscribers reside in Bharti's mobile circles and hopes to conquer 99 per cent of this population with the new expansion.

Bharti Cellular’s CEO & Director — South Central Region, Jagadish Kini said, "In the next fiscal we will go all out to further enhance our leadership through expanding to 85 more towns taking its final count to 235 towns in Karnataka - the jewel in Airtel’s crown".

Kini states that a total of Rs 200 crore will be invested in Bangalore city alone to strengthen its network with the deployment of EDGE and use of Wi-Fi solutions at key points such as airports and railway stations in the city. He says that special attention will be given to the Mangalore-Karwar belt, touted to be the next IT corridor.

Apart from the urban areas, AirTel has plans for the rural sector as well, which include providing mobile connectivity to 20,000 new villages across the 21 circles in the coming year.

CIOL Bureau