Significant job cuts could result from the Indian operator Tata Teleservices’ (TTSL) plan to merge its CDMA and GSM businesses. The unification could affect up to 15 per cent of the firm’s employees.
Commenting on an internal memo, one TTSL source said: "This restructuring may drive efficiencies but could end up making job positions redundant. Our estimate is 15 percent of the employee strength, which include employees eased out on the basis of non-performance. CDMA employees will be impacted the most due to this restructuring."
TTSL’s CDMA and GSM businesses operate under the respective brands of Tata Indicom and Tata Docomo, the latter of which takes its name from its shareholder, the Japanese operator NTT Docomo.
While TTSL has around 93 million registered subscribers - making it the sixth-place operator in India – the regulator TRAI has classified under 50% of both TTSL’s CDMA and GSM subscribers as “active”. At least one call must be made or received per month for a subscription to qualify as active.
The restructuring will reportedly result in four new regional heads - Ajit Chaturvedi, Mahesh Thampi, Vineet Bhatia and Yatish Mehrotra – who will respectively oversee the Delhi & Rajasthan, East & Uttar Pradesh, West & Upper North, and South regions. Deepak Gulati, national head of TTSL’s mobile operations, will take charge of the new heads.
