In the 17 months since Idea Cellular and Vodafone India announced they were set to merge operations the two shed almost a third of their combined workforce, Business Standard reported.

According to the newspaper’s figures, when the deal was first announced in March 2017 the two had around 25,000 staff. By the time the merger was finally sealed last week this had fallen to 17,000.

Some of the former Idea staff have reportedly moved to other businesses owned by the operator’s former parent Aditya Birla Group, which has a vast range of interests across a number of sectors in India.

In April 2018, Economic Times reported the merger was expected to cost a total of 5,000 jobs between the two companies though it estimated the two had a total of 21,000 staff at the start of the process compared to the 25,000 figure used by Business Standard.

Tribunal
In a separate Economic Times report, the newly formed Vodafone Idea was said to be preparing a court case against the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in a bid to recover the INR73 billion ($1 billion) in spectrum costs.

The sum was paid as a condition of getting regulatory approval for the merger and related to a number of charges including frequencies already allocated and downpayments for future auctions.

Legal action would come as no surprise as the companies retained the right to contest the sum on agreeing to pay the charges. The case is likely to be heard by the Telecoms Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal before potentially being settled by the Supreme Court.