No plans to sell stake in Idea Cellular: Kumar Mangalam Birla

BANGALORE: Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, Kumar Mangalam Birla on Thursday said that it had no plans to sell its stake in Idea Cellular.

"There are no plans to sell stake in Idea Cellular", he told reporters on the sidelines of Global Investors Meet here.

The statement comes in the wake of speculation that Reliance's Mukesh Ambani may be interested in foraying into the telecom business if Idea was available.

Earlier, in his speech during the meet, he said Idea services cover 83 per cent of Karnataka's total population.

"Here, we have nearly 2.70 million customers, straddling 2,300 towns and 16,000 villages", he said.

Lauding the Karnataka government, he said, "Our investments so far have been above Rs 5,000 crore in our multiple plants in this State. We are very buoyant on Karnataka, given the enabling growth environment and incentives for expansion modernization and diversification. In the near future our growth plans entail an investment in excess of Rs 8,500 crore".

He said the company had invested considerably in Karnataka in terms of financial resources, manpower development and management time to spur the growth of its businesses. "We have almost 20,000 employees on our rolls. Through ancillarisation, we have created work for approximately another 30,000 people", he said.