Punjab surges ahead in mobile connections

CHANDIGARH: Haryana being in proximity to Delhi has gained considerably in terms of industries and employment, but the prosperous Punjab continues to be a hot belt for all mobile firms.
According to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the statistics among the three big players in Punjab — Spice Communication, Bharti Mobile, and BSNL — indicate that the circle has added 19,13,071 new connections in January 2004, while it was 3,39,333 new connections in Haryana during the same period despite having four major players -Bharti Cellular, BSNL, Aircel Digilink (now Hutch) and Escotel Mobile (recently purchased by Idea).
During January, Spice added 8,56,015, Bharti added 7,65,544 and BSNL 2,91,512 in the Punjab circle while in Haryana, Escotel led with 1,29,398 followed by Bharti 1,27,026. Reacting to the surge in Punjab circle, Rajiv Sawhney, executive director of Hutchison Essar, said Punjab is one of the richest circles in terms of growth and has a very robust market than any other mobile circles. ‘‘That is one of the reasons why we are investing about Rs 500 crore in the region. Haryana is more rural expect for the stretch between Ambala and Delhi,’’ he said.
After investing Rs 200 crore in the recent launch of Hutch in Haryana, Hutchison Essar plans to invest Rs 500 crore to grab on the hot mobile belt of Punjab, for which it bought the license from Escotel to launch its operations in Punjab from May/June this year.
Hutch will become the forth player in the region after Airtel, BSNL, HFCL and Reliance among the GSM and CDMA players.
Incidentally, Chandigarh, with high per capita income, has contributed largely to Punjab circle. Panchkula and surrounding areas also fall under the same circle.
‘‘Haryana, except for the national capital region (NCR), is rural, but still is a good base for launching Hutch in Haryana,’’ said G. Udayan Dravid, Hutch chief operating officer in Haryana and Rajasthan. Besides the GT Road, we plan to install towers in the interior parts of the state and we are also in the process of installing towers in the border areas, Dravid said.
The education levels in rural districts of Hisar, Jind and Jhajjar is low and so is the awareness level about mobiles, says a teacher from Hisar. Similarly, the statistics for November/December 2003 indicate 17,79,836/16,86,821 new additions in Punjab while it was 4,14,512/3,91,441 in Haryana during the same period.
However, it may be noted that Reliance Infocomm does not submit details to COAI website. Himachal Futuristic Communication Ltd is another player in the Punjab circle. Similarly, on all-India front, another study indicates as many as 1.59 million additional subscribers have taken fresh mobile connections in January 2004, taking the total cellular subscriber base to 29.77 million in the country.