Evergrowth Telecom (Merged with Bharti Airtel Limited)

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Evergrowth Telecom was awarded a 10 year- license to operate cellular services in Punjab in April 1996. Evergrowth Telecom was created as a wholly owned subsidiary of JT Mobile which was owned by Jasmine of Thailand (13%), and Telia AB (26%), the state-owned Telephone Organization of Thailand (10%), United Telecom Limited (31%) and the Sanmar Group (20%) by end 1998. JT Mobile sold 50% stake in Evergrowth to Essar in 1997. As of August 2001, Evergrowth was owned by Bharti Enterprises and the Essar Group. The company committed to pay US$353.6 million in licenses fees for Punjab over 10 year period. Due to difficulties in paying the license fees, a new telecom policy was introduced which allowed companies to shift to a revenue sharing arrangement (see below). Prior to this migration, the company was obliged to pay US$108.59 million in license fee payments (net present value in 1997 dollars). Evergrowth Telecom Ltd. signed a US$34 million contract with Motorola for the deployment of a GSM network in Punjab by the end of 1996. In December 1996, the government cancelled Evergrowth's license due to "unfulfilled conditions" associated with the sales of shares to the Essar Group. However, the cellular project in Punjab commenced commercial operation in August 1997 and had a subscriber base of 5,000 by end of 1998. The company experienced serious financial difficulties in 1998 due to the low subscription base and unpaid-license fee dispute. In 1998, the license was reinstated after these conditions were met, but there remained disputes over license fees due to DoT in from the period of April 1996 to March 1998 on the order of Rs 455 crore (roughly USD 100m). Despite this, the company invested Rs 150crore (USD33.5m) to expand the network in Punjab in July 2000. Bharti Enterprises purchased Evergrowth's license in 1999 and paid up the dues and got the licence reinstated in late 2001. It began cellular service in Punjab on February 8, 2002, breaking the monopoly of Spice Telecom in Punjab. Bharti started the service under AirTel brand and the company became part of Bharti Mobile.