CHENNAI: Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Group CEO, Bharti Enterprises Limited, was conferred the 17th Amalgamations - MMA Business Leadership Award for 2008-09 for his outstanding contribution to telecom industry which had changed the profile of knowledge-driven India perceptibly.
A Sivasailam, Chairman, Amalgamations Group, presented the award instituted in the memory of S Anantharamakrishnan, Founder-Chairman, Amalgamations Private Limited, to Sunil Bharti Mittal in the presence of a host of dignitaries and business legends across the spectrum.
Speaking on the occasion as part of delivering the 17th Anantharamakrishnan Memorial Lecture, Mittal said that he had to undergo many moments of trials and tribulations before scripting his success story, all because of his passion to do something different in the world of business.
Though he could not get Maruti Suzuki agency as a young entrepreneur, he was the first to bring the push button telephone to India, of course with a business network from a garage in Ludhiana.
He said that his romance with telecommunication had started in 1991 and he was able to join the consortium of 14 companies in March 1992 and his Bharti Telecom was one among them.
Then came the now or never moment for him, he said and added that the opportunity to launch the mobile phones came to him in 1995 with the company raising more capital with the help of some foreign investors since telecom had needed deep pockets.
“In 2001, the big boys entered the telecom area and there was no giving up in the fight for a place in the sector because of the hope and perseverence we had at that time,” he noted.
“Now Bharti Telecom is the second largest player in India with a projected sales target of $10 billion to be achieved next year and the third largest telecom player in the world,” he said.
He also outlined the company’s role in making changes in society by launching primary and secondary education in 500 schools in villages, with 238 of them becoming operational by now. “There are also plans for 10 primary schools in Tamil Nadu,” he said.