Centre promises all help to ITI

The Centre would extend all possible help to the ailing public sector Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) in its endeavour to make a turnaround, Union Minister of State for Communications and IT Gurudas Kamat has said.

Kamat, who visited the city-headquartered ITI recently, appreciated the company’s efforts in shaping a new road map of businesses through diversification and consolidation, an ITI release said today. Stating that ITI “now has a clean balancesheet”, the minister promised all possible help from the Government to the company in its endeavor to turn around.

ITI should be able to do better in the coming months, he added. The ITI management made a presentation on the company’s activities and future plans. ITI Chairman and Manging Director K L Dhingra thanked the Minister and the Department of Telecom (DoT) for supporting the company from time to time.

He explained how its losses had come down in the last few months. The Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprise (BRPSE) has recently advised BSNL to take over ITI as the merger will help the state-run telco emerge as a strong competition to Chinese equipment manufacturers.

The Board has recommended the merger of ITI with BSNL or its takeover by BSNL as a separate subsidiary, terming the move as a “strategic vertical integration”. ITI, a telecom equipment manufacturing company, has units at Palakkad, Bangalore, Srinagar, Naini, Rae Bareli and Mankapur. It had posted a higher net loss of Rs 104.34 crore for the quarter-ended December 31, 2010, as against Rs 53.15 crore in the same period last fiscal.