Shruthi Hassan new images

Actress cum pop album singer Shruthi Hassan looking gorgeous in her recent photo shoot while she was attending the launch of the Videocon company's GSM mobile services, in Chennai. The service, which was launched in Tamil Nadu today “with sub-one paise effective tariff”, will be rolled out in other States, covering 100 cities over the next 100 days.

Addressing a press conference here, the Chairman of Videocon group, Mr Venugopal Dhoot, said that Videocon would invest Rs 14,000 crore in its mobile telecom business in the next three years, and expects to secure 100 million subscribers over the period.

He spoke of the huge market waiting to be tapped in India – today 550 million in India have mobile phones, against an addressable population of 800 million. Further, when number portability comes, Videocon expects migration from other operators to its network.

SBI lending:

Mr Dhoot said that a consortium of bank led by State Bank of India has committed to lending Rs 7,000 crore to Videocon, for the telecom business.

The rest of the funds will come from internal accruals.

In Tamil Nadu, where Videocon joined nine other operators today, the company intends to invest Rs 1,500 crore, generating employment to some 20,000 people.

It said the company has 3,400 base stations across the State and would add more as and when necessary.

Mr Dhoot said that the Videocon brand is known across the State and the mobile service would leverage this brand recall.