The Anil Ambani-helmed operator is transferring 178,000 kilometres of fibre to sibling billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s company, according to an exchange filing. Reliance Communications’ shares were down about 0.5% on Monday in Mumbai at 11.15am, taking declines this year to 48%. S&P BSE Sensex was trading 1% higher.

The transaction comes as RCom, as the company is known, works to pare debt ahead of a deadline from the country’s central bank August 27 for firms with delinquent accounts to provide a plan to pay creditors or face insolvency proceedings. The deal is part of a broader pact to sell most of its wireless assets to Reliance Jio.

Monday’s filing comes on the heels of announcements last week about completing the sale of transmission nodes to Reliance Jio for 20 billion rupees and securing dollar bond holders’ approval to pare its obligations. It’s yet to close sales of two large assets – its airwaves and towers – to Reliance Jio, which decided in December last year to buy these for about US$2.5 billion.