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MUMBAI, June 16

RELIANCE Industries Ltd is targeting a whole new set of customers for its Reliance IndiaMobile services — 3.3 million Reliance shareholders.

Mr Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries, on Monday offered shareholders a discount package at the company's annual general meeting held here.

The company has offered Rs 850 discount on initial payments on subscription per connection. In addition, the shareholder will be offered free usage worth Rs 100 for the next six months. This amounts to a total discount of Rs 1,450 per connection.

If a shareholder subscribes to two connections, he or she will get free usage worth Rs 100 per connection for the next 12 months, in addition to the Rs 850 per connection discount. This amounts to a total discount of Rs 4,100 for two connections.

Many shareholders had earlier suggested at the AGM that the company offer a discount on infocomm services to its shareholder community.

A press release issued by the company quoted Mr Ambani saying providing for "a special attractive scheme for shareholders for the Reliance IndiaMobile service'' was "always'' on his mind. He however, wanted to time it either as "a surprise announcement at the AGM or (as a) present at the time of Diwali''.

Reliance Industries had invested Rs 4,850 crore ($1 billion) in Reliance Infocomm as on March 31, 2003, Mr Ambani told shareholders at the AGM. This includes Rs 2,362 crore($ 492 million) in equity and Rs 2,488 crore ($518 million) in debt. RIL holds 45 per cent equity in Reliance Infocomm.

Speaking about Reliance Infocomm's initial interconnectivity, messaging and other engineering problems, Mr Ambani said, "given the scale and complexity of the initiative, some teething problems were natural''.

He said the company had left behind the initial problems and was now catering to 1.5 million customers. It is logging in four-crore minutes usage per day.

He said Reliance Infocomm's "capital cost per subscriber are about 50 to 70 per cent lower than those of all new global telecommunication deployments in recent times''.

Reliance will launch a broadband-based netway and a broadband-based consumer convergence services.

Mr Ambani said that the company would be "technologically ready'' to launch its pre-paid services for all its infocomm customers. However, no indications were given on the tariff plans for this service.

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Reliance package for shareholders — Offers discounts on mobile phone connections

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