NEW DELHI: Reliance Jio Infocomm has said its board will meet on March 23 to consider raising Rs20,000 crore through debt in tranches.In a notice to the National Stock Exchange late Tuesday, the new telecom entrant, wholly-owned by Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), said its board will meet to get approval “…to raise funds by way of issuance of listed/unlisted, secured/unsecured, non-convertible debentures for an amount upto Rs 20,000 crore on a private placement basis in tranches/series and also to approve ancillary actions for the said issuance of debentures.”The move to raise funds comes a few days after its bitter rival and market leader Bhati Airtel announced plans to raise Rs 16,500 crore via the debt market to refinance existing debt and pay for spectrum.Both telcos are locked in a bitter fight for subscribers and need to invest in expanding their 4G network.Reliance Jio, with over 160 million subscribers, has already invested over Rs 200,000 crore in its network. Previously, its preferred route to raise funds has been through the issue of optionally convertible preference shares (OCPS) to its shareholders.Its parent RIL itself is in the process of refinancing $1 billion syndicated commercial loans.