At a time when the government is trying to separate BSNL's 70,000 mobile towers, despite severe opposition from the employees, and to hand it over to a Subsidiary Tower Company, the BSNL employees have to understand what actually is happening in the telecom tower business.
"Indus Towers" is the Indian telecom infrastructure company, and it is one among the biggest tower companies in the world, having 1,23,000 towers. It is being jointly owned by Bharti Infratel (42% shares), Vodafone India (42% shares) and Idea Cellular (11.15% shares). Airtel, India's largest telecom company, is the owner of Bharti Infratel. On it's own, Bharti Infratel is already having 39,264 towers. Now, Bharti Infratel has initiated the process of buying out the remaining 52% shares in Indus Towers. Thus, Indus Towers is going to be taken over by Airtel soon. If this acquisition materialises, then, almost the entire Indian tower business will go into the hands of Airtel.
But, experts say that, this is only the first part of a two part deal. The second part of the deal is coming soon. In that second part, the entire tower business of Airtel will be taken over by a multinational consortium, for 11 billion US dollars. That multinational consortium is being led by an US company called KKR, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board(CPPIB), Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and GIC of Singapore. So, it is very clear that, the telecom tower business in India is slipping into the hands of multinational companies. In such a scenario, it is not difficult to understand that, the so called BSNL's Subsidiary Tower Company, will also be taken over by multinational giants. The BSNL employees have to sharpen their struggles, to stop such a disaster, and to save BSNL.
[Inputs from the Economic Times dt. 31-10-2017]
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