Reliance Jio to raise Rs 3,500 crore debt to fund 4G roll-out expenses

Ahead of launching commercial operations of 4G services, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, the telecom arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, plans to raise Rs 3,500 crore debt to fund roll-out expenses.

"The Company proposes to issue Secured Redeemable Non- Convertible Debentures aggregating up to Rs 3,500 crore, on private placement basis," RJIL said today in a regulatory filing. The company's board has approved the proposal.

In May, the company had raised $750 million or about Rs 4,500 from Korea Trade Insurance Corporation to buy telecom equipments from Samsung Electronics and Ace Technologies.

RJIL did not share any further details about the fresh debt that it plans to raise.

The company, which has pan-India permit for 4G service, is testing its networks and will soon start a beta programme before the commercial launch in December.

RJIL is looking to start commercial service with 4G mobile phones priced as low as Rs 4,000 a unit.

The company is now present in all 29 states of India, with a direct physical presence in nearly 18,000 cities and towns of the country and covers over one lakh villages.

In addition, RJIL has also built an optical fibre network comprising nearly 250,000 route kilometres of fibre optics.

Over the next three years, Jio has plans to more than double its optical fibre network and connect over one million homes by April 2016.