After Niira Radia

A group of 30,in fact,has already been absorbed by one of Radia’s largest clients – Reliance Industries Ltd. Singh,along with group chief operating officer Vishal Mehta,chief executive officer Rohit Dubey,and Mumbai branch head Sachin Rampal and 26 other executives,will soon be joining RIL as part of the company’s internal communications team.

VCCPL was founded with the mandate of managing public relations and external communications duties for the entire Tata Group but Radia’s personal eminence and her contacts in the political and corporate world soon drew in several other companies wanting her to lobby for them. While VCCPL continued to focus only on the Tata Group,Radia launched Vitcom Consulting Pvt Ltd and Noesis Strategic Consultancy Services Pvt Ltd in 2007 to oversee the growing number of non-Tata clients.

Noesis was again a dedicated agency meant to lobby with politicians and policymakers. Radia had roped in senior bureaucrats such as former finance secretary C M Vasudev and former chairman of telecom regulator TRAI Pradip Baijal to run the agency. The duo,according to senior Vaishnavi executives,had a stake in the agency but they later sold it to Radia. Till recently,the agency’s web site,which is no longer operational,mentioned the two bureaucrats as its founding directors.

Noesis’s website also highlighted the expertise of its employees in public and regulatory policymaking for the economic and fiscal sectors,investment and regulation of infrastructure and core sectors,privatisation and strategic communications.

Several other high-profile bureaucrats,such as former non-renewable energy secretary V Subramanian and former BSNL chairman D P S Seth,were associated with Noesis at various points in time. The agency managed the policy-related lobbying functions of clients such as Telecom Regulatory Authority of Oman,Regulatory Authority of Laos,Vedanta Group,Tata Teleservices and Tata Communications.

In 2008,when Mukesh Ambani decided to hand over the lobbying duties of his group to Radia,she launched another dedicated agency,Neucom Consulting Pvt Ltd,to focus mainly on RIL. It is estimated that the Tata Group and RIL together contributed more than Rs 100 crore annually to the PR network’s coffers.

Its other well-known clients included Hindustan Construction Company,Lavasa Corporation,the Indian Premier League team Rajasthan Royals,Unitech,Confederation of Indian Industry,GMR Group and a host of fashion and entertainment clients.

The Tata Group has roped in marketing communications group Rediffusion-Y&R and global public relations firm Edelman to manage its various companies and accounts. “We are in constant touch with our other clients and are talking to various agencies in the market to ensure a smooth transition,” said Singh.

In the email sent to her employees,Radia indicated that the businesses of other clients will also be handed over to some agencies soon. “The BIU (Business Intelligence Unit,the central network that managed data bases and intelligence on companies) services will continue to all the clients and we are working on a migration plan which will be shared shortly.”