Idea to demerge tower business

New Delhi, Sept 10 (UNI) Aditya Birla group company Idea Cellular Ltd today said its Board of Directors has decided in-principle to demerge its tower infrastructure business into a wholly-subsidiary unit.

Idea Cellular's plan to extend its services to Mumbai, Bihar and Jharkhand is also getting delayed because the company has not received the spectrum allocation for these states as yet.

Sources said the allocation had been cleared by the department of telecom and would be notified to Idea soon.

Reliance Communications Ltd had earlier sold five per cent of its towers business to seven institutional investors for Rs 1,400 crore, while Bharti Airtel is also planning to spin off its mobile towers business to a wholly-owned unit.

India, the world's fastest growing market for mobile services, added about 28 million new users in the four months ended July.

UNI