With orders for Rs 479 crore and proposed large scale manufacture of the new products, HTL hopes to hit a turnover of Rs 600 crore by April 2001. WiLL and SDH and TAX-XL are expected to contribute Rs 100 crore, said chairman and managing director Lakshmi G. Menon.

However, the Centre which owns 100 per cent equity in HTL, is planning to divest 74 per cent to a strategic partner and has engaged KPMG to select a suitable partner. The process is expected to be completed during the current year.

The one-time teleprinter manufacturer had made a major turnaround by manufacturing electronic telecom switching equipment with technology from C-Dot and Siemens. During 1999-2000 the company made a turnover of Rs 451 crore (Rs 359 crore) with sizeable increase in the production of switching equipment from 0.83 million lines to 1.36 million lines.

Mechanical products manufactured by the company rose to 2.46 million lines from 2.0 million lines. To these it added the manufacture of Managed Leased Data Network (MLDN) and Internet Access Nodes (IAN) which contributed Rs 18 crore to the turnover. HTL has completed TEC evaluation of WiLL technology for urban and rural application and has obtained type approval for the rural system. It has orders from both MTNL and BSNL and more orders are expected. The company supplied 42 digital loop carrier (DLC) systems to MTNL for deployment in Delhi and Mumbai which will provide connectivity to 12,000 subscribers. DLC on SDH are undergoing field trials for large deployments on BSNL network.

DLC, an access network equipment, enables cluster of subscribers access the telephone exchange over a pair of optical fibre cables to cover a range of 50-60 km and avail new services including ISDN.

HTL has supplied and installed MLDN to MTNL in Delhi and Mumbai. Now it is carrying out an order worth Rs 2.91 crore for Bombay Stock Exchange for online trading applications.

The company is expecting large orders for its High bit rate digital subscriber line (HDSL) modems. HTL has taken up the development of asymmetrical digital subscriber line (ADSL) modems along with Dot, ITI, BEL and HCL.

HTL on a low capital base of Rs 15 crore achieved a turnover of Rs 451 crore during 1999-2000. The profit before tax rose to Rs 20.67 crore from Rs 8.5 crore, and profit after tax to Rs 12.45 crore from Rs 6.83 crore. It has declared a dividend of Rs 90 lakh at the company's annual general meeting on September 29.