Voda Idea faces DoT’s ops & fin inspection

NEW DELHI: The telecom ministry has opened an inspection into the affairs and management of struggling telco Vodafone Idea as talks regarding the government’s planned move to pick up equity in the company — in lieu of the interest payout for spectrum payment moratorium — have “more or less collapsed”, top sources said. Any re-think on the matter would happen only when the company’s promoters — industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Aditya Birla Group and Vodafone Plc of the UK — put money into the debt-laden telco, or else manage to rope in a financial investor, sources said.

Also, the government is hesitant to pick up equity in the company (as had been approved by the Cabinet) as its share price has fallen under Rs 10 (it closed at Rs 7. 85 on Friday, down 7% in the past six months). The board of the company had offered the government the stake at a par value of Rs 10 per share, based on which the government had made all the financial calculations regarding its entry (for a stake of around 33%).