Mumbai, Oct. 30: Niira Radia, the corporate lobbyist who reached the pinnacle of the public relations business by juggling the coveted mandates of the Tata group and Reliance Industries before falling headlong into a tapes scandal, has shut down her consultancy business in India.

“To give precedence to my personal priorities of family and health, I have decided against renewing any client mandates and to exit the business of communications consultancy,” the Kenya-born Radia said in a statement.

“It is a painful decision which has been taken after much consideration and consultation with my family, doctors, clients and colleagues,” the statement added.

Sources said Radia’s decision would mean an uncertain future for around 200 employees who worked for Vaishnavi Corporate Communications (VCCPL), Neucom Consulting (which holds the PR mandate for the Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries) and Vitcom Consulting. Vaishnavi was started exactly a decade ago on November 1, 2001.

Most of the employees have a proviso in their employment contract that provides for one month’s notice in the event of termination of their jobs, said a source. Other sources suggested that two months’ salary could be given. The sources said the formal news of the closure was broken to key executives at Radia’s farmhouse outside Delhi.

In a separate parting note to her colleagues, Radia quoted Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone whose modern-day avatar eventually brought her down, and drew attention to the irony.

“Once you settle down, I want you to reflect on a quote which ironically was stated by the discoverer of the phone, Graham Bell: ‘When one door closes, another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, we do not see the ones which open for us’,” she wrote.

The announcement came nearly a year after her purported conversations with politicians, business leaders and journalists appeared in the media and provided the ballast that transformed the nature of the 2G scandal.

The CBI and other investigating agencies questioned Radia several times in connection with the 2G case. No charge has been filed against her and she is one of the prosecution witnesses for the trial that is expected to begin in the second week of next month.

Radia’s leading clients — the Tatas and Reliance Industries — lauded her contribution even as they appointed alternative communication outfits to fill the breach.

In a statement, the Tata group parent, Tata Sons, said it had decided to appoint Rediffusion, led by Arun Nanda, to manage public relations and public affairs for the Tata group of companies from November 1. “This follows the expiry of the contract with Vaishnavi Corporate Communications on October 31,” it added.

Reliance Industries has opted to set up an internal public relations outfit that will absorb some of Neucom’s existing employees. In the letter to her employees, Radia said: “A team of 30 employees will move to Reliance Industries to form their internal communications team.”

It is learnt that some Tata group companies too are looking at the possibility of taking on board employees from Vaishnavi.

The surprise announcement comes just days before the November 11 trial of 17 people and entities, including former telecom minister A. Raja and DMK leader Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi, who have been formally charged with entering into a criminal conspiracy to sell scarce 2G telecom spectrum to cherry-picked players in January 2008.

Radia is a British passport holder who came to India in the mid-nineties to lobby for an amendment to India’s aviation policy in an unsuccessful attempt to help the Tatas and Singapore Airlines gain control of state-owned Air India.

Sources said that Radia’s consultancy engagement with the Tata group brought in roughly Rs 35 crore by way of fees annually. Unconfirmed estimates pegged her total annual income from communications and corporate affairs at Rs 100 crore a year.

Radia’s decision puts an end to a decade-long association with the Tata group that started in 2001 after she impressed chairman Ratan Tata with her knowledge of the aviation business.

Radia’s firm also managed the public relations affairs of the Tata group during the Singur crisis. Haldia Petrochemicals was also her client but the relationship ended last year.

Today, Ratan Tata gave Radia a clean chit, saying Vaishnavi’s engagement with the group was “ethical and satisfactory”. “She has built Vaishnavi from scratch into the company it is today, often subordinating her personal and family interests in favour of her client’s priorities,” Tata said. He added Vaishnavi had contributed significantly to the building of the Tata brand since 2001.

A statement from Reliance Industries gave an equally effusive farewell to Radia saying that the company regretted her decision to exit communications consultancy.