Cabinet okays Vodafone foreign direct investment into India joint venture

NEW DELHI: The cabinet on Thursday approved foreign direct infusion of up to Rs 25,000 crore by the British telecom giant, Vodafone Plc , into its India joint venture Vodafone Idea Ltd.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley announced that the government had approved the FDI proposal of investing anywhere between Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 25,000 crore, floated by the telecom department.

The approval comes a month after, the board of directors of Vodafone Idea Ltd had approved Rs 25,000 crore fund-raising plan by way of rights issue to existing eligible equity shareholders.

The promoter shareholders — Vodafone Group and Aditya Birla Group — had informed the board that they intended to contribute up to Rs 11,000 crore and up to Rs 7,250 crore, respectively as part of such rights issue.