Idea gets nod to start Mumbai operations

Ajoy K Das & Nivedita Mookerji

Kolkata/New Delhi: At a time when Hutchison and Essar are fighting it out in the Mumbai High Court over merger with BPL Mobile in the Mumbai circle, the government has given a go-ahead to their competitor – the Aditya Birla group’s Idea Cellular—to enter the same market.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is learnt to have issued a letter of intent (LoI) to Idea for starting mobile services in Mumbai. Idea had filed an application for entering the Mumbai circle in 2005.

After it bought the Tata stake in the venture, Aditya Birla group had to submit fresh documents on the shareholding pattern in the company to DoT.