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| Bharti Airtel to set up campus |
| BS Reporter / Kolkata/ Bhubaneswar Aug 05, 2009, 00:15 IST |
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Bharti Airtel Limited, one of India’s leading telecom service providers, is setting up a Bharti campus on two acres of land close to the Infocity region in the city.
The Bharti campus with a total built-up area of 70,000 sq ft would offer centralised office space for carrying out the company’s operations in telecom, direct to home (DTH) and insurance services in Orissa.
Addressing reporters through video-conferencing, Manoj Kohli, chief executive officer and joint managing director, Bharti Airtel, "We have acquired two acres of land near Infocity in Bhubaneswar for our Bharti campus. Construction work on our campus has already started and we would shift to the campus by the end of this year."
He refused to spell out the figures on investment or employee strength of the proposed Bharti campus.
Bhart Airtel had recently completed the process of integration of its West Bengal and Orissa telecom circles to bring more uniformity in Airtel’s services so that its customers are benefited to a greater extent.
The move to integrate the West Bengal and Orissa circles was aimed at streamlining the decision making process at the regional level, said Kohli.
Bharti Airtel which is the market leader in the Orissa circle with a market share of 35 per cent is aiming to cover 80 per cent of the villages in the state by the end of 2009-10.
"Our focus is on strengthening the mobile services for our rural customers in Orissa. We are aiming to set up 1,500 Airtel service centres in the different villages in the state by the end of this fiscal. These service centres would be run by our retail partners and the centres would create a huge employment potential in the rural areas", said Kohli.
Talking on Bharti Airtel’s joint venture (JV) with Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (Iffco), Kohli said, "Our JV with Iffco is working very well in Orissa and is providing useful content to the farmers of the state he added.
Airtel which has a subscriber base of around 34 lakh in the Orissa circle on Tuesday announced a life-time offer for its new GSM subscribers at Rs 25. Deepak Srivastava, chief executive officer of Bharti Airtel’s integrated West Bengal and Orissa circle said, "Our objective is to make mobile services more affordable for our customers. We will continue to provide innovative services for our customers."
Asked if Bharti Airtel was holding back its plans to expand its mobile services in the Maoist infested regions of Orissa, he said Airtel’s plan to expand its mobile services is on track and the Maoist attack on some telecom towers is not going to deter us.
Srivastava said Bharti Airtel’s cumulative investments in the Orissa circle have exceeded Rs 1,000 crore, but he refused to spell out the investment plans for the future.
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