Bangalore, Mar 12: ITI Ltd, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, will exceed the MoU target of Rs 1,200 crore, registering an impressive growth of 30 per cent in sales turnover this fiscal.According to ITI chairman S S Motial, the company will register a revenue of about Rs 1,300 crore, out of which an income of over Rs 350 crore would come from novel technologies which were implemented in a phased manner. For 1996-97 ITI reported total sales of Rs 1,021.21 crore (Rs 782.62 crore) and a net loss of Rs 64.57 crore (Rs 267.69 crore).
"Our bottomline this fiscal will mainly depend upon the resolution of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). Talks are still on with the DoT for fixing prices of the services and products supplied to DoT last year," Motial added.
He said ITI will break even next fiscal with a marginal profit. The company has set a target of Rs 1,500 crore for the next financial year. Next year the company's turnover will include a revenue of Rs 300 crore from the latest technologies including digital loop carrier (DLC), wireless in local loop (WILL) and high Level digital subscriber loop (HDSL). ITI is also keen to enter the banking automation segment with the ATM technology in a big way. "Our marketing strategies, along with the launch of new technologies, helped the company to put the efforts on the right track," he said.
He said ITI's order-book position is much better currently as compared to the corresponding period last year. Further orders are also expected in the near future which should lead to an improved performance of the company.For staging a comeback next fiscal, ITI is also planning to lend out its additional manufacturing capacities available at plants in Palakkad (Kerala) and Bangalore. "We are negotiating with a couple of major companies to offer spare facilities. A formal announcement is expected soon. The alliance with such companies will be based on sharing our manpower, technology, tool-room facilities and extra space," Motial said.
ITI has already started producing some automotive components at its Palakkad unit. GEC and ABB are using switchgears from ITI. This will give an edge over the multinational competitors to fetch a good revenue to get rid of the budgetary support from the union government.
Meanwhile, the telecom behemoth announced a fresh voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) here on Monday aiming 200 to 300 people. This will cost around Rs 12 crore additional expenditure to the company. During the current fiscal so far, about 400 people availed off this scheme. In fact, there is an overwhelming support from employees across the country for this scheme. Yet another area the company is focusing is the export front. The CMD has already made visits to several countries including the Saarc countries, Africa and the Middle East. "We expect sales of about Rs 25 crore from exports next fiscal," Motial said.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
