Ratan to head Tata Tele

Firdose Vandrewala quit the post citing personal reasons.

Tata group supremo Ratan N Tata was appointed chairman of the group's privately held telecom company Tata Teleservices. The incumbent, Firdose Vandrewala, has quit the post, citing personal reasons.

The board of the company invited Tata to head it and he accepted the invitation, a company source said. The company has so far pumped in over Rs 15,000 crore in the telecom business.

Industry sources said Tata's appointment signalled the growing importance that the group attached to the rapidly increasing telecom business.

Earlier this year, Tata stepped down as chairman from the board of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, the long-distance enterprise data solutions and bandwidth services company of the group, leaving the responsibility to Subodh Bhargava, former Eicher group chairman.

According to Tata group sources, telecom investments are amongst the largest the group has ever made in any industry in the country. The investments are in step with the chairman's vision of seeing the Tatas playing a leadership role in an "increasingly convergent information technology and telecom space".

Tata Tele, at the instance of Ratan Tata, had decided to roll out a national network in late 2003 and covered over 1,000 cities in a span of nine months.

Since the beginning of this year, the company has more than doubled its subscriber base and is expected to cross the 6-million subscriber mark this month.

Experts said Tata's track record showed that the companies led by him had gained leadership positions, in spite of stiff competition. The Indica was one of the examples. The first indigenous passenger car became a market leader despite competition from 12 companies.