ITI banks on JVs for turnaround
Printer Print Email Email
New Delhi: In bid to reestablish itself in the country's telecoms manufacturing space, the State-owned Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) is forging alliances, reported The Economic Times. ITI has signed deals with several companies including the one with China's Huawei to manufacture IP Tax equipment at its Palakkad plant, with U.S. based Alphion to manufacture G-PON equipment in the Rae Bareli factory, with Chennai based Midas Technologies for broadband equipment, with Digibee to manufacture GSM handsets and with China's Gaoxinqi for CLIP phones among several others. ITI hopes that these deals will enable the company to have a wider product portfolio as against the current scenario where it depends on contracts from state-owned BSNL and MTNL for its survival. ITI has also sought a Rs 2000 crore bailout package from the Centre to wipe out its accumulated losses which have now risen to about Rs 2,250 crore. This bailout will also enable ITI, which has six manufacturing centers spread across India, to obtain the critical working capital that it requires to execute the numerous manufacturing deals it has entered into. The PSU, which has signed a contract with Alcatel-Lucent for manufacture of GSM equipment in its Mankapur and Rae Bareli plant, is also in the process of augmenting the capacity to 9 million lines. And also, the company is said to be in talks with defense forces to manufacture communication network hardware for all the three services. Sources further said that with many Indian telcos planning to introduce fixed cellular telephones (FCTs), ITI was in talks with service providers to manufacture these handsets. Another step being adopted by ITI is to diversify into IT and ITenabled services. Sources said ITI had bagged several deals in this segment. "Besides, the successful implementation of the project to expand internet services of MTNL is a significant step in the expansion of the company in the IT space," a company source said.

siliconindia