Alcatel to invest 500 mn euro in India

French telecom giant Alcatel will invest up to 500 million euro in India over the next four years and take the headcount of its research and development facilities in the city to 2,000.

"Alcatel will invest 400 to 500 million euro in India in the next three to four years," Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran told reporters after the inauguration of the GSM mobile phone equipment manufacturing facility at the Mankapur unit of ITI Ltd in the Gonda district of the state.

The investments by Alcatel in India will be in manufacturing, research and development and allied activities.

Alcatel currently has 750 engineers the country working on new technologies. "By the end of the current year or early next year, we will have 2,000 people in India engaged in developmental efforts," Alcatel's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Serge Tchuruk said after the inauguration of the manufacturing facility.

Congress President and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi inaugurated the facility.

India will emerge as a major research and development base for Alcatel, which has 16,000 engineers worldwide engaged in developing new technologies for the world market.

Tchuruk also said the company's joint venture with C-Dot for developing technologies around Wimax would become operational by the end of this month in Chennai and would have around to 500 engineers.

The GSM manufacturing unit at Mankapur could start only after Alcatel was convinced by Maran to transfer technology. The government is also in talks with Alcatel to transfer technology for digital subscriber line (DSL) broadband access equipment.