“SingTel chairman was in India recently and he made a statement that we will like Airtel to be the consolidator in the market,” he added. Mittal welcomed Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal’s recent statement that the M&A policy would be announced by October 15.

“We are very encouraged with the ministers statement that something would be coming out in October,” he said.

Telecom operators have been waiting for long to see the final guidelines of merger and acquisition (M&A).

India has 13 mobile service providers with some of them expected to go in for consolidation once the final guidelines are in place. Although the telecom ministry had announced broad guidelines for M&As in February last year, the detailed norms are yet to be be unveiled.

The guidelines that have been approved in-principle include expeditious approval to merger proposals of telecom companies if their combined market share is up to 35 percent.

The ministry will seek telecom regulator Trai’s recommendation in case the resultant entity has market share of 35 to 60 percent.

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