Mukesh Ambani to pump in Rs 30,000 crore more into Reliance Jio

After pumping in $25 billion (nearly Rs 1.66 lakh crore) to launch Reliance Jio last year, Mukesh Ambani is reportedly planning to spend more to boost its network coverage, a report by Bloomberg said.

According to it, Reliance Industries is in the works to raise $4.4 billion (or nearly Rs 30,000 crore) through a rights offer to improve its network capacity. 

The move comes at a time when Jio's rivals are up in arms with the new player in the sector, accusing it of engaging in anti-competitive practices to widen its subscriber base. A point of contention is Reliance's launch offer that doled out freebies for three months to garner new customers. This was later extended to March 31, raising a red flag with the rivals. According to the current rules, promotional offers can only go on for 90 days. Jio, however, gave a statement saying that its Happy New Year offer was completely different from its launch offer, and thus didn't break any rules. 

Jio's entry in the Indian telecom market has shuffled things up with low data prices and free voice calls. While the player faced many teething problems in terms of call drops because of insufficient interconnection points from other telcos (a claim refuted by Airtel, Vodafone and Idea), it has also prompted them to cut data cost and offer free voice calls to remain relevant in the game. 

Reliance Industries would be announcing its third quarter results later in the day. All eyes will be on the company's statement on Jio and its plans hereon.