Bharti to invest Rs 300cr in eastern region

AirTel is set to extend its footprint to 12 states in the eastern region with an investment of Rs 300 crore, taking the company's total investment in the mobile business to Rs 10,000 crore.

The move would make AirTel the only GSM mobile network to have 100 per cent coverage across the length and breath of the country.

Manoj Kohli, president mobility, Bharti Tele-Ventures said, "AirTel has become the first GSM operator which is set to operate its services in all the 23 telecom circles.'

AirTel currently provides mobile services in 15 circles and also acquired licences to provide mobile services in five new circles of Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh (East).

The company's recent agreement for acquisition of Hexacom would give it access to its north-east licence and to complete its footprint in the eastern region, AirTel has applied for a unified access licence to commence its service in Assam.

Kohli said that roamers would benefit a lot from this move. Bharti has a scheme for the western region. When asked whether a similar initiative would be launched for the eastern region, he chose not to comment.

The headquarters for the eastern region would be Kolkata. The company would beef up its manpower in the eastern region by 300 channel partners and suppliers would also be ramped up.

In Kolkata, the company planned to spend around Rs 100 crore over the year. With this the total investment in the circle would stand at Rs 600 crore, since acquisition.

AirTel planned to expand its mobile services to 200 new towns during the year 2004-05, out of which 100 towns would be added in the launch phase of new circles within the second quarter of this fiscal.

To service the needs of the region, AirTel would set up over 500 sites in all the new eastern circles.

During the coming year, AirTel on a national scale planned to double its cell site count from 5,000 to approximately 10,000.