The company is planning to start 500 desk centres in Delhi and Mumbai. In Hyderabad, the company has 40 desks, and is planning to add 250 desks by the end of next year for Andhra Pradesh, he said. On the product side, the company has come out with e-mail service or pocket mail in Ahmedabad and Mumbai, targeting at least one lakh people in the first year of operations. This e-mail service too, is likely to be introduced in Hyderabad soon, he said. The infotech subsidiary of DSS Mobile, DSS Infotech Solutions Limited (DISL), promoted by a joint venture with E-PAC International, is setting up an overseas development centre in Delhi to take care of its overseas operations with more focus on CRM projects and product development.

For this, an investment close to Rs 30 crore is likely to be pumped in its first year of operations. This centre will provide Oracle-based services and solutions in CRM, supply chain managment, B2B exchanges and mobile communication applications, he said. "We will be building new solutions on a client-by-client basis in the international market with a worldclass development centre in India," he said.

With a reduction in the tariffs on both alpha numeric and numeric pagers, priced at Rs 300 and Rs 175, respectively; reduction in the price of pagers, customs/excise duties and sales tax; abolition of service tax on paging services and reducing the license fee of five per cent, the paging industry is likely to spur growth in the lower income segment, Mr Suri feels. Though there was growth in the first three years of operations, it has now stagnated because of step-motherly treatment by the government and the recent plans of the cellular operators, Mr Suri added.