Sunday, February 26 2006 12:15 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: In the midst of a spat with Tatas over the stakeholding in their joint venture Idea, Birlas haveinformed the Government that their own telecom application for licence in Mumbai in 'no way competes' with the Idea's.

"We clarify that the Aditya Birla telecom application in no way competes with the Idea application," Sanjeeve Aga, Director and Chief Financial Officer of Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd (ABNL), said in a comunication to the Department of Telecom on February 22.

The ABNL communication, which questions non-compliance of Tatas to licencing conditions and seeks direction from the government for their immediate exit from IDEA, says "The Idea application pre-dates the Aditya Birla telecom application.

"The Idea application will be disposed of one way or the other, independent of the Aditya Birla application," it said.

Interestingly, in the same letter, ABNL analysed the licence conditions for ouster of Tatas from IDEA saying "It is totally inconsistent with the national telecom policy that a business group, while maintaining its own telecom operations, should first build and continue for two yearswith impermissible holdings in another competing company."

According to Birlas, the central purpose of the cited licence conditions is that 'competition is not compromised'.