Former Motorola India head floats new firm

Pramod Saxena, former head of Motorola India, has floated a new company - India Pre-paid Services - which will allow pre-paid card users to recharge their mobile cards from retail chains.

Saxena was eased out of Motorola following allegations of corruption while striking a network deal with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.

The Central Bureau of Investigation is understood to be investigating into the allegations, which also involved some BSNL officials.

The new company is a 50:50 joint venture with The Pre-Paid Company of South Africa. It has tied up with Bharti and Hutchisson to launch the services initially in Delhi and Mumbai.

In the initial phase, India Pre-paid will offer virtual pre-paid airtime services through 200 retailers which will go up to 2000 retailers by the year end.

Over the next 12-18 months, India Pre-Paid plans to tie up with all Indian operators. It plans to capture 20 per cent of the pre-paid recharge market.

The new concept will allow consumers to recharge their pre-paid airtime of any mobile operator and of any denomination from third party retailers.

Retailers will benefit from this service as they will no longer be required to hold airtime stock in physical form of cards and will have a fully integrated virtual ordering and delivery system, 24 hours a day. This would also operators to streamline their distribution system through a single network.

"After having spent five years with Motorola, it was important that I used this experience in being part of something as exciting as this venture. I will play an advisory role at India Prepaid Services helping them establish their operations and market their services," Saxena said.