Eyeing a marketshare of 22 per cent this year, India's largest private-sector telecom player Bharti Televentures will invest $1.4 billion during 2004-06 for expanding the company's network infrastructure in the country.

"We are spending $700 million this year in doubling base stations to 10,000 and an equal amount will be spent next year to increase the number of base-stations," Bharti group chairman Sunil Mittal told reporters in Singapore on the sidelines of the GSM World Congress Asia 2004.

Mittal said the company had already awarded contracts for sourcing equipment to Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens for network expansion. Bharti currently outsources switches and other equipment from Siemens and Motorola too.

"We expect mobile phone users to double to 60 million by this year end. We currently have 21 per cent market share which we expect to increase by 1 per cent this year," he said.

Bharti's revenues have remained largely unaffected due to tariff cuts, he said.

"Growth should be hastened with tariff cuts. We are in good shape," he said.

Asked if he supported the government's move to increase limit of foreign direct investment in the telecom sector, he said: "We have been supportive of raising FDI limit. The government should lift all kinds of restrictions."