What If Vodafone Idea Goes Bankrupt?
The current situation of Vodafone Idea, India’s third
largest telecom company, is bothering the company, its subscribers and to an
extent, the government. The stepping down of Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla as the
non-executive chairman of the company is the final chapter in the Birla group’s
painful tryst with telecom.
Vodafone merged its operations with Idea in a $23
billion deal in 2017. However, the entry of Jio in the same year made their
life tough in the three-player market.
With the debt of Rs. 1.86 lakh crore, Vodafone Idea is
now on the edge of bankruptcy with the owners. Birla’s stake in the company is
27% and Vodafone’s stake is 44%, they are unwilling to bring in more money.
With a loss of Rs. 44,233 crore in FY21, Vodafone Idea now has a negative net
worth of Rs. 38,228 crore.
Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla has stated in his letter that
he is willing and ready to hand over his entire stake to the government to keep
the company as a going concern with its 27 crore users. However on the other
hand, the UK-based Vodafone Plc has made it clear that it is no longer going to
pool in equity into the company.
What will happen
to the existing subscribers if Vodafone Idea shuts down its operations?
Vodafone Idea users are worried about what is going to
happen to their mobile connections if the company actually shuts its operations
in India. Well, there is nothing to be worried about as the subscribers will be
given enough time to port to other telecom service providers.
The rules require that the telecom companies, before
shutting down their services in India, must give at least 30 days advance
notice to subscribers and notify the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)
60 calendar days in advance.
For example, when Aircel, one of the telecom companies
announced the closure of its services in 2018, its subscribers were forced to choose
a different service provider. They were allotted Unique Porting Code (UPC) by
TRAI through which they were able to choose for Mobile Number Portability
(MNP). Till October 2019, the subscribers could port out to some other network.
After the deadline, the subscribers who hadn’t ported yet, had to surrender
their number as the UPC became invalid.
It seems that the era of low tariffs is going to be
over now, with the telecom becoming a duopoly market with the two lords of the
ring: Sunil Mittal and Mukesh Ambani.
Sources
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