Aircel To Fire 700 Employees Ahead Of Its Proposed Merger With Reliance

Telecom company Aircel will lay off 700 employees, almost 10% of its employees across in the country, in the first phase of its downsizing ahead of the proposed merger with Reliance.

Currently, Aircel has 8000 employees.

The Times of India reported that this is the first phase of manpower downsizing under which first lot of people have been asked to agree on company's compensation package that includes the salary of February and basic pay of next 6 months. The employees have been given one week time to respond.

According to a source who spoke to the newspaper, the entire exercise is being aimed at reducing duplication of human resources with the possible merger with Reliance Communications (RCom).

The merger process is on hold after the Supreme Court threatened to axe the proposed merger and get Aircel’s spectrum auctioned off angered by the refusal of its Malaysian businessman T Ananda Krishnan to heed the summons issued to him.

“Krishnan, who has a significant stake in Aircel-Dishnet, has been accused of acquiring the control of Aircel with the help of former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran who allegedly coerced the original promoter to evacuate the venture. Dayanidhi and his brother Kalanithi were discharged on Thursday by a Delhi court in the case,” reported The Times of India.

The next phase of downsizing has been scheduled for the month of April.

"In the coming 7-8 months, we are planning to go slow on all segments as more stages of job cuts are on the cards," another unnamed source and an insider at Aircel informed.

According to experts, this may be probably the first of the many such announcements awaiting India's telecom sector.