ITI to make 3G equipment with Alcatel support

With production of third generation (3G) equipment starting at ITI's plant next year, India will join the group of select countries manufacturing 3G GSM equipment, said Dayanidhi Maran, communications and IT minister, while launching the production of GSM equipment at the plant.

French equipment vendor Alcatel will provide technology support for manufacturing 3G equipment.

Maran also said that ITI will soon announce collaboration with a foreign technology partner for manufacturing CDMA equipment at its Bangalore plant.

The ITI plant in Naini is set to begin production of ADSL modems for broadband while the Palakkad centre, which currently manufactures SIM cards will make switches for GSM equipment, he said.

National Advisory Council Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Etienne Fouques, President, Mobile Communications, Alcatel, inaugurated ITI's second production at Barelli. Gandhi had inaugurated a similar 3 million GSM lines manufacturing facility at ITI's Mankapur plant in July, 2005.

The Rai Bareli centre will have a capacity for the manufacturing of 3 million lines and this will be doubled by April 2006, said Maran, while adding that post expansion, the plant will produce 2 million GSM lines for export to Africa.

This implies that by April 2006, ITI will augment its capacity to about 10 million GSM lines. ITI has invested Rs 54 crore to upgrade its Rae Bareli plant to produce GSM equipment.

The plant was earlier involved in the manufacture of E-10 B switches, C-DOT exchanges and SMPS.

Listing the efforts by the UPA government to revive the company, Maran said that the ITI-Alcatel had already been allotted 4 million GSM lines by BSNL for its West Zone.

"Additionally, both BSNL and MTNL have placed fresh orders equivalent to 3 million lines each, and Alcatel will hand out an order for 2 million lines for exports to their projects in Africa," Maran said.

"The ITI-Alcatel partnership, in addition to contributing to mobile telephony in the country, will also make India a manufacturing hub for Alcatel, on the likes of our facilities in China, Brazil and Europe," said Etienne Fouques.

DoT officials said that the government has advised BSNL and MTNL to reserve between 25 per cent and 30 per cent of their requirements along with an advance payment of 70 per cent of the purchase amount order to ITI.

"We have also advised BSNL and MTNL to consider levying market interest rate of 6.5 per cent against SBI's prime lending rate presently charged by the PSU on the advance given to ITI. Besides, exemption from provision of bid security and performance bank guarantee will also be given to BSNL and MTNL," said DoT officials.