Idea Cellular on Friday said it completed its merger with Vodafone India Ltd and Vodafone Mobile Services Ltd after getting approval from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

CNBC-TV18 broke the story first on August 30 saying the NCLT had approved the merger of the two telecoms operator on Thursday.

The merger is expected to generate Rs 14,000 crore annual synergy, including operational expenditure synergies of Rs 8400 crore, the companies said in a joint statement.

Balesh Sharma has been appointed chief executive officer of the merged entity with effect from August 31, the companies added.

The combined operations of Idea and Vodafone will create the country’s largest telecom operator worth over $23 billion (or over Rs 1.5 lakh crore), with a 35 percent market share and a subscriber base of around 430 million. With the new entity coming in force, Bharti Airtel will lose the tag of India’s biggest telecom service provider.

Last month, Idea and Vodafone made a joint payment of Rs 7,248.78 crore under protest to the Department of Telecom (DoT) for merging their mobile business after it did not pay any heed to telecom companies’ requests to re-consider the dues amount.