Escorts Telecom in a financial crisis

NEW DELHI: Escorts Telecom Ltd (ETL) is facing a short-fall of around $ 40 million (about Rs 185 crore) that has held up its plans to set up three new cellular projects.Company officials said it was not clear as to when the new projects would take off. ””We are talking to various investors to put in place both equity and debt,”” said Rajan Swaroop, CEO of Escotel Mobile Communications Ltd, another Escorts group company that provides cellular services in Haryana, UP (West) and Kerala.About two years ago, ETL paid around Rs 230 crore for licences to operate cellular services in Punjab, UP (East), Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan to bring ETL and EMCL under a common holding company.ETL had been negotiating with global investors to close funding but with partial success. It decided to sell the Punjab licence to Hutch to reduce funding needs. ETL has a ”in-principle” deal with IFC to raise $15 million in equity and $60 million in debt. Escorts will invest $ 35 million, once government clears Punjab licence sale to Hutch.