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Coimbatore, May 14 Bharti Airtel, which has tied up with cooperative major Indian Farmers and Fertilisers Cooperative (IFFCO) to get hold of extra footprint in rural telecom marketing, will have the benefit of 4,000 farmer societies affiliated to IFFCO in Tamil Nadu to promote its rural customer base.

Airtel-IFFCO tie-up will come in handy for the telecom company to reach out to potential rural telephone/mobile users spread out in 31 districts in Tamil Nadu. “The tie-up has given us the strategic business initiative in terms of enlarging the distribution reach of Airtel,” said Mr Anirban Ghosh, Chief Operating Officer, Bharti Airtel (Tamil Nadu).

The telecom company is currently working out its service rollout for rural marketing. Airtel’s rural network coverage in Western Tamil Nadu comprising seven districts is presently around 86 per cent and according to Mr Ghosh, its coverage in three of the seven districts — Coimbatore, Erode and Salem — is as high as 90 per cent.

In an informal chat with media persons here on Wednesday, Mr Anirban Ghosh said Airtel’s recent reduction in local call and STD tariff rates would boost its business focus on combining affordability and availability (network distribution) of services for semi-urban and rural marketing.

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