By Rajesh Roy

NEW DELHI--India's federal cabinet on Wednesday approved American Tower Corp.'s plan to buy a 51% stake in local telecom tower company Viom Networks Ltd. for 58.56 billion rupees ($880 million), Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

The company would acquire the controlling stake through its Singapore subsidiary ATC Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Mr. Prasad said at a news conference after the cabinet meeting.

Viom Networks is owned by Tata Teleservices Ltd. and Kolkata-based SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd. Group, along with some other minority shareholders. The deal between American Tower and Viom was announced in October, but needed to be approved by the cabinet.

Mr. Prasad said that American Tower has pledged to invest $2 billion in India. He didn't elaborate by when.

"The foreign investment in the telecom infrastructure will help spur economic growth," he said.

Write to Rajesh Roy at rajesh.roy@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 06, 2016 06:47 ET (10:47 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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