UMB provides the marketing support to Usha Martin Telekom Ltd for its Command cellphone service in Calcutta. Santhalia was speaking at a press meet organised to announce the inauguration of the mobile refilling service for Command cash cards.

The company has an agreement with Nokia for selling and servicing its handsets. It also plans to sell handsets of all the other major brands like Philips, Motorola and Ericsson.

The company has a turnover of around Rs 7 crore to Rs 8 crore at present and operates in the financial markets, apart from providing marketing support to Command. "It also holds the shares of many group companies," Santhalia said.

The Command network has a subscriber base of around 25,000 in Calcutta, of which around 3,000 are users of the cashcards. There are 18 operating refill centres in Calcutta for Command apart from the mobile van that is starting operations on Thursday.

Santhalia said, "We will be importing handsets in bulk from all the international vendors and selling them in the domestic market. We will start off with the eastern region, but might expand our operations to the rest of the country too."

"We are looking at introducing more innovative products, but a lot depends on whether the government agrees to exempt the cash-card users from the purview of the licensing agreement as they are not regular consumers," Usha Martin Telekom general manager Suresh P Charles said.

"Our records show that only 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the cash-card users are regulars, while the others are one-time users. Under the agreement, we have to pay Rs 500 per month to the Department of Telecommunications per user which robs us of the opportunity of introducing a smaller denomination card too," Charles said.