CCI Approves Bharti Airtel-Telenor India Merger:- Fair trade regulator, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved the proposed merger of Norwegian telecom operator Telenor India with Bharti Airtel.

The country’s largest telecom operator had got approval from the capital markets regulator Sebi and the stock exchanges - BSE and NSE, on the proposed scheme of the merger between the two firms.

A joint company application has been filed by both the firms, Bharti and Telenor, before the National Company Law Tribunal’s (NCLT) New Delhi bench for approval of the merger.

Besides, NCLT, the firms also need the go ahead from the Department of Telecom (DoT).

The company said in a BSE filing, “We wish to inform you that Competition Commission of India (CCI) vide its letter dated June 5, 2017 has approved the proposed merger of Telenor (India) Communications Pvt Ltd with Bharti Airtel Ltd.”

On February 2017, Airtel and Telenor signed the agreement for merger. Under the terms of the contract, Airtel will acquire Telenor India’s running operations in seven circles - Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP (East), UP (West) and Assam.

Earlier, the company had said, “These circles represent a high population concentration and therefore, offer a high potential for growth. The proposed acquisition will include transfer of all of Telenor India’s assets and customers, further augmenting Airtel’s overall customer base and network.”

Moreover, the merger will also enable Airtel to further increase its strong spectrum footprint in these seven circles, with the addition of 43.4 MHz spectrum in the 1800 MHz band - widely known as 2G spectrum, but it is now being used for 4G services as well.

SUPRAJA