Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd (SSTL) has asked its customers in 10 circles to use up their entire balance with in the next 30 days as it is going to shut down all operations in those circles.

The CDMA operator, which operates under MTS brand name, will close operations in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, North East, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Punjab.

The operators also suggested its customers in the concerned service areas to switch to some other telecom operators of their preference.

SSTL Chief Executive Vsevolod Rozanov said in a statement, "SSTL is providing a 30 day time window to all its customers in the 10 circles to exhaust their balance and to port out to a telecom operator of their choice."

The shutting down of the operation in the ten circles will impact as many as 22 lakh people. As per the company's claims, it has a customer base of more than 14 million across the country.

Rozanov also confirmed that the company would participate in the spectrum auction scheduled to take place next month.

The chief also said that the company would keep on moving forward with its concentration on its data centric-voice enabled strategy in select service areas.

SSTL, in which Russian firm Sistema JSFC and Russian government owns stakes of 56.68 per cent and 17.14 per cent respectively, lost 21 out of its 22 licenses last year, when the Supreme Court ordered cancellation of several permits due to irregularities in the process of spectrum distribution.