The Hindu : Bharti to merge 3 group cos.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 10, 2002

Business

Business

Bharti to merge 3 group cos.

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI DEC. 9. Bharti Enterprises today announced the merger of its non-cellular companies into one entity and a minor reshuffle of officials responsible for its southern operations. There has also been a minor reallocation of responsibilities among these companies.

The three companies responsible for non-wireless business — fixed line services, long distance services and broadband services — have been merged into a new company called Bharti Infotel. The initiative was announced in September last year but has been given concrete shape now after legal clearances were received.

While Badri Agarwal will head the merged entity, P. Swaminathan's area of responsibility has increased to cover Karnataka. Earlier he looked only after Tamil Nadu while Karnataka was handled by Cherian Kuruvilla. Mr. Swaminathan will be assisted for Karnataka by a chief operating officer (COO), Prem Pradeep.

All long distance retail products including the India One calling card will move to the broad band unit headed by Ashok Juneja while the N. Arjun headed long distance operations unit will "focus on the mandate as the leading carrier of carriers.''

Since, today's initiative was a continuation of the intentions expressed in September last year, the observation by the Bharti Enterprise chief, Sunil Mittal, was identical.

"This initiative is designed to ensure that synergetic businesses are run along similar lines'' he noted, adding on this occasion that "the customer is looking for a single stop solution provider who will take responsibility for the entire chain and deliver higher capacities, faster downloads, scale up the network as software evolution happens and use the available bandwidth to take care of his complete requirements.''

Bharti has also been taking steps to reorganise its cellular business.

In the middle of this year, responsibility was assigned to officials on a regional basis. Last month, the board was strengthened with the induction of Manoj Kohli from Escotel Cellular and Sarvjit Singh Dhillon who was heading the `north central' operations.

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