The debt death knell seems to be calling Vodafone Idea. The promoter of Vodafone Idea and Chairman of Aditya Birla Group, Kumar Mangalam Birla has offered to hand over his Rs 6,000-crore-worth stake in the telecom company to the government.
Birla, who owns over 27% stake in Voda Idea, is willing to hand over his stake in order to keep the telco afloat, as per a letter he wrote to Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba on June 7.“It is with a sense of duty towards 27 crore Indians connected by VIL, I am more than willing to hand over my stake in the company to any entity-public sector/government/domestic financial entity or any other that the government may consider worthy of keeping the company as a going concern,” Birla said in his letter.
This highlights a serious concern in the company as Birla offered to give up his control of the company more than a month before the Supreme Court dismissed the company's application for recalculation of the AGR dues.
VIL's debt has increased sharply in the last four years to Rs 1.6 lakh crore as of March 2021 end, from around Rs 37,000 crore in FY16.