NEW DELHI : The department of telecommunications has approved the merger of the consumer mobile operations of the Tata group with Bharti Airtel, Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd said in an exchange filing on Thursday.
This final approval comes over two years after the companies had announced their plan to merge businesses.
In October 2017, the Tata group had announced that it would sell its consumer mobile business to Bharti Airtel on a debt-free, cash-free basis, except for it assuming a fraction of the unpaid spectrum fees that the Tata group owes to the DoT.
The Tata group owes over Rs14,000 crore to DoT in pending adjusted gross revenue dues after the Supreme Court in October last year upheld the government’s definition of revenue and asked the country’s top telecom operators to cough up over Rs1 trillion in past dues.
Under the deal signed in 2017, Airtel absorbed Tata’s mobile phone operations across the country in 19 circles (17 under Tata Teleservices and two under Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd).
The acquisition expanded Airtel’s spectrum footprint and 4G coverage and its ability to compete with rival Jio, as Airtel got access to 178.5 megahertz (MHz) spectrum (of which 71.3MHz is liberalized or free to trade) in the 850MHz , 1,800MHz and 2,100MHz bands.
The deal also gives Airtel an indefeasible right to use part of the existing fibre network of the Tata companies.
