S D Kulkarni, managing director and chief executive officer, said the sales and service revenue increased by seven per cent to Rs 5,676.77 crore from Rs 5,304.74 crore. "The company has done well when viewed against the backdrop of a diffilcut 1997-98 for the entire Indian industry," he said.

While industrial production grew at 4.2 per cent, this was three per cent in the case of manufacturing and negative growth for the capital goods sector, he added.

Profit before tax was Rs 590 crore as compared to Rs 473.10 recorded in the same period of last fiscal, thus marking an increase of 25 per cent.

Kulkarni said the turnover was impacted by the spinning-off of software division into a wholly ownedsubsidiary and construction equipment division into a joint venture.

The engineering and construction division contributed 57 per cent of the turnover in 1997-98, while the rest being accounted for by cement, switchgear, construction equipment and software. He said that the company has booked order worth Rs 6,440 crore representing an increase 14 per cent despite a bad year. The company also has a backlog of orders worth Rs 5,250 crore as on March 1998, he said.

Kulkarni said that one major contributor to the good showing was the revenue on spinning off the Bangalore construction business as a joint venture with Komatsu of Japan. The results show that this fetched Rs 108 crore. On the present scenario of excess capacity in cement, he reiterated that "we are a long term player and India will need cement in the years to come." The company's cement capacity has gone upto almost 11 mmtpa after its recent expansions.