India Telecom

December 5, 2002
Committee to be constituted for addressing TEMA issues

INDIA -- Ms Sumitra Mahajan, minister of state for Communications and IT has directed the secretary, DoT to constitute a committee to look into the grievances of the Telecom Equipment Manufacturers' Association (TEMA). If the committee succeeded in addressing TEMA's current issues, it would be extended to look into the further issues and grievances.

She added that while local competition was healthy, it was necessary to compete against the foreign companies. "All members need to work together and co-ordinate to compete against the competition." The minister requested the industry body to ensure that there was no compromise on the quality of the equipment being manufactured.

Ms Mahajan was addressing an august gathering of the Indian telecom community after releasing the TEMA directory 2002. She was responding to a number of issues raised before the government by P. Balaji, secretary general, TEMA, where considerable amount of money and other resources were blocked with MTNL/BSNL, and hence, TEMA was seeking the ministry's intervention. The issues include: discontinuation of the practice of issuance of advice transfer debit and advice transfer credit; issue of C-form; liquidated damages and extension of delivery period; release of EMD for vendors outside the consideration zone; and orders for C-DoT's indigenously manufactured switch. TEMA had also requested the minister to form a high-power committee to sort out all of the important issues.

Earlier, Vinod Vaish, chairman, Telecom Commission and secretary, DoT, pointed out that the telecom industry was going through major challenges. Appreciating the efforts of TEMA, he called upon the manufacturers to change as per the emerging scenario. He added that in the changed scenario, perhaps, the equipment being manufactured did not have the market it used to have in the past.

He said: "We need to produce goods as per the new, emerging scenario. We have to keep changing as per the market requirements. We have to provide world class service and QoS -- which needs world class equipment." He asked the industry to work together to meet competition and the challenges of the times. According to him, the industry had achieved a total turnover of Rs. 15,000 crores.

NK Goyal, president, TEMA, said that the industry had taken up the challenge and were producing world class equipment. The TEMA directory 2002 contains full information on the national telecom scenario as well as the telecom equipment-manufacturing sector. It is an authentic source covering topics such as an overview of the Indian telecom industry, NTP99, highlights of the foreign investment policy, telecom manufacturing sector, telecom services sector, telecom software sector, telecom exports and the current duty structure. It also contains information on government telecom organizations such as DoT, BSNL, MTNL, TRAI, VSNL, C-DoT, TEC and TCIL, as well as TEMA member profile and product matrix.