Uninor, a joint venture between Norway’s Telenor, the world’s sixth-largest mobile phone firm, and

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Indian real estate major Unitech, has hired over 2,000 staff to launch its mobile service in three western telecom circles, a top official said.

“We have hired over 2,000 staff to roll out services in the Mumbai, rest of Maharashtra-Goa, and Gujarat circles in the second quarter of the calendar year,” said Olav Sande, executive vice-president, western hub, Uninor. The firm will go pan-India within two years with a total investment of Rs 15,500 crore, he added.

The company did not announce tariff for the three western circles, saying it would be competitive. At present Uninor offers two price plans in the eight circles it operates: a base plan called talklonger@29p and a subscription plan called callmore@29p.

Sande said Telenor that owns 67.25 per cent has already infused equity of Rs 6,100 crore in February 2010 and another Rs 9,400 crore will be raised as debt by the JV.

The telecom company has set up seven zonal offices in Mumbai, rest of Maharashtra-Goa, and Gujarat circles.

“We want to cover at least 130 big cities and towns in these circles with our superior technology network,” Sande said, adding that the company was following renting towers business model to cover the entire 22 telecom circles in the county for which the company has obtained license.

“From the present 14,000 towers we have hired from Tata Teleservices under the service level agreement, we will hire a total of 20,000 towers to go pan India within two years”, he said.

Sande said since its service launch on December 3, 2009 in eight circles, it had garnered 3.55 million subscribers. Sande said the firm targeted to achieve operating cash flow break even in five years.