NEW DELHI: The Tata Group informed the government on Friday that it plans to shut its wireless business, bringing an end to its 21-year-old phone services venture.
Company executives and industry insiders said the debt-laden telecom company, which will shut its operations soon, had last month asked circle heads to leave by March 31, 2018.
There were 5,101 employees on its rolls as on March 31, 2017, as per the latest annual report. Search firms which are dipping into the telecom sector for profiles said they have received resumes from circle heads who want to exit the telco, and have been given a time frame to do so.
This will be one of the first big Tata units to be shut in the group’s 149-year-old history. Tata Teleservices, which was set up in 1996 with landline operations, had a cheqered history. It launched CDMA operations in 2002, then adopted GSM in 2008 and received Rs 14,000 crore of investment from NTT Docomo, which eventually decided to exit the loss-making joint venture in 2014, citing weak financial performances.
Source: telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com