Vodafone to invest over Rs13,000 crore in India

Vodafone has said it plans to invest of over Rs 13,000 crore in the country to upgrade and expand its network in India, and in its payments bank operations.

The announcement through a statement was made after Vodafone’s global head Vittorio Colao met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in London on Thursday. Vodafone, which is India’s No. 2 telecom operator with over 188 million subscribers, however didn’t provide a timeline for the investments.

Vodafone said that out of the total proposed investment, Rs 8,000 crore would go towards enhancement, upgradation and expansion of its network coverage. Vodafone has called this investment in “Digital India”.

In addition, Rs 4,000 would go towards “Make in India for the World”. This would include investments to further increase capacity and upgrade its high-end technology centre and IT and customer experience centres in Pune and Ahmedabad. It would also set up a state-of-the-art tier-4 data centre in the country.

The balance Rs 1,000 crore would go into the Payment Bank business, a permit for which the company recently acquired from the RBI. Vodafone added that it hoped to increase its headcount in India to 15,000 in the next two years.

The statement further said that Vodafone was the largest FDI investor in the country as it had invested over Rs 1.11 lakh crore and contributed over Rs 1 lakh crore to the exchequer.