Uninor on Monday announced its decision to withdraw operations from Kolkata and West Bengal circles from January 19 next year.
According to the company, withdrawal of operations has resulted after the Supreme Court ordered cancellation of licences and no new spectrum being available through auctions in 2013.
Operations in 12 other circles too will also be withdrawn.
The 12 other circles where Uninor will withdraw operations include Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, North East, Assam and Himachal Pradesh.
“With no new 1800 MHz spectrum auctions being indicated by the authorities and 900 MHz spectrum also unlikely to be available to auction winners in 2013, Uninor will have to stop its operations in the two circles of Kolkata and West Bengal on January 19, 2013,” the company said in a release.
The company’s operations in 12 circles where minimal obligatory rollout had been conducted to meet the licence conditions will also cease on January 19, the release added.
Uninor is a joint-venture between Norwegian telecom major Telenor and Indian real estate company Unitech.
The company will issue a public notice to all its customers in Kolkata and West Bengal to exhaust their balance by January 18 and opt for mobile number portability. In the two circles of Kolkata and West Bengal, Uninor has a total subscriber base of 5.6 million of which 57 per cent are active (till October 2012).
The Telenor Group, through its new entity, Telewings, has secured fresh licences and spectrum for the next 20 years in six circles that include UP (East), UP (West), Bihar (including Jharkhand), Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra (including Goa).
The Uninor business will be transferred to the new company and operations will be scaled up in these circles in months to come, it said in a release.
On Monday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has directed operators whose licences were cancelled following the 2G spectrum scam and those failed to acquire spectrum in the last auctions to inform subscribers to about the closure of services.