Nokia today announced a five-year contract with Hutchison Essar to take over the operations of its GSM network in eight states in India. Though the value of the contract was not released, the sheer scope of the deal, which will see 600 Hutchison staffers join Nokia, makes it one of the largest managed services contracts Nokia has landed to date.

Nokia will take over operations in nine regions in the states of Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chennai, Uttar Pradesh (East and West), Rajasthan, Haryana and West Bengal, taking over network planning, operations and maintenance, project management, configuration and optimization and administration of third-party contracts. Nokia is the primary infrastructure supplier for Hutchison in those nine regions.

Network management contracts have been on the rise in recent months. Last month, Ericsson announced a major network management deal with Hutchison's 3G venture in the U.K., 3. That deal itself followed Ericsson and Hutchison's deal to take over 3 Italy's operations, a contract valued a $2.4 billion.