The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has directed all telecom circles heads to treat Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) as separate entities.

Recently, DoT had written to all telecom circles heads that it has not yet taken on record the transfer or merger of the demerged undertakings of TTSL to Bharti Airtel and Bharti Hexacom and transfer or merger of the demerged undertakings of Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited (TTML) to Bharti Airtel.

DoT has also asked all its entities to deal with customer acquisition process and all compliance related issues of both the companies separately.

Further, circle heads are directed to segregate CAF audit process of Airtel and Tata Teleservices such as submission of separate subscriber database, submission of separate sampled CAF’s, calculation of separate compliance percentage and issuance of separate demand notice for imposition of penalty of Airtel and Tata Teleservices.

The move has been undertaken because DoT is in the process of challenging their merger in the Supreme Court.