Bharti to invest Rs 120 cr in Maharashtra

Bharati Tele-Ventures (BTVL) will invest Rs 120 crore in the current financial year to fuel its mobile, telephone, broadband and a host of other services in Goa and Maharashtra circle.

With an already strong base of over 7.5 lakh subscribers, Airtel is targeting more than 3 lakh customers during the current financial year.

"This is our crucial phase of expansion and the idea is to further strengthen the spread and depth of network coverage in the Goa and Maharashtra circle. The company would effectively spread its network an on average of 10 locations per week," said Christopher Tobit, Chief Operating Officer, of the Goa-Maharashtra circle of Airtel.

As of now, the company covers 330 towns in the Goa and Maharashtra circle and will add another 100 in a year's time.

The number of base-stations will touch over 1200 across the Goa and Maharashtra circle by the end of the financial year 2005-06.

Airtel, which is today the largest GSM cellular service in the private sector, expects to grow drastically this year.

"We are expecting a growth of 85 per cent subscriptions in the current financial year," said Tobit.

BTVL is the first mobile service provider to launch the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution (EDGE) services in the Goa and Maharashtra circle.

It offers a high download speed of 200 kbps on EDGE in Pune and GPRS service across the Goa and Maharashtra circle.

Airtel also plans to announce the launch of broadband services in the Goa and Maharashtra circle, said Tobit. The broadband services will put them in competition with the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Reliance Infocom Limited (RIL).