Hutchison Essar has become the second foreign telecom operator that has been approved to get an STD licence in India.

The approval will be termed as indirect FDI holding and it will work through a holding company structure with 68.09% holdings.

However, 74% FDI in telecom sector is allowed. Due to some technical reason, the company could not signed the ISD licence on Friday.

Ashim Ghosh, MD, Hutchison Essar, has confirmed about the licence approval. Hutchison Essar had applied for STD and ISD licences in India almost a year ago.

The company’s has 21.26 million mobile subscribers spread across 16 circles throughout India.

Currently, Hutchison customers make STD calls by using other operators such as VSNL, Reliance, Bharti and BSNL.

Now, all mobile operators in India, except Idea, will now have captive subscribers to serve their long distance business.

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