Vodafone Idea shares tumbled the maximum amount as 24 per cent on Thursday, each day after the troubled telecom operator’s board accepted Kumar Mangalam Birla’s request to step down as non-executive chairman. Mr Birla had engineered the merger of Idea Cellular, which was a part of his Aditya Birla Group, and therefore the Indian operations of Vodafone in 2018 to make Vodafone Idea, creating what was the country’s largest telecom operator at that point .
Mr Birla, who features a net worth of $14 billion consistent with Forbes, are going to be replaced by Aditya Birla Group-nominee Himanshu Kapania as non-executive chairman, Vodafone Idea said during a stock market filing on Wednesday.

1. Vodafone Idea has declined to discuss why Birla sought to step down, and representatives at the Aditya Birla Group didn’t immediately answer an email from Reuters.
2. The shares have nosedived around 40 per cent within the past three sessions alone. The shares plunged 27 per cent within the previous two sessions after Mr Birla offered handy over his stake within the company to the govt or “any other entity that the govt may consider worthy to stay the corporate operational.”
3. Investors weren’t willing to take a position within the company within the absence of clarity on AGR liability, an adequate moratorium on spectrum payments and most significantly floor pricing regime above the value of service, Mr Birla had said in his letter.
4. Vodafone Idea’s problems centre round the computation of adjusted gross revenues (AGR). consistent with the Department of Telecom,
5. Bharti Airtel owed quite ₹ 43,000 crore as AGR dues, while Vodafone Idea’s balance payment exceeded ₹ 50,000 crore.
6. The Supreme Court last year gave the telecom companies 10 years until 2031 to clear the dues after missing a January deadline. the 2 companies approached the Supreme Court seeking corrections of what they called errors within the government’s calculations of dues, but the highest court rejected the plea.
7. Telecom companies pay a percentage of their revenues as license fees to the govt . consistent with them, non-core businesses like rent, income from sale of handsets or roaming charges shouldn’t be included within the revenue of which they pay a percentage – they only wanted to pay on revenues earned from their core business.
8. Moreover, Vodafone has been struggling to compete with the likes of Bharti Airtel and therefore the Mukesh-Ambani controlled Reliance Jio during a market that witnessed the most cost effective call and data rates globally, till very recently.
9. As of May 31, Vodafone had 277.6 million wireless subscribers, a foreign third to rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, with 431.2 million and 348.3 million, respectively, data from India’s telecoms regulator showed.
10. At 11:40 am, Vodafone Idea shares were trading at ₹ 5, weaker by 11 per cent, on the BSE.