When ITI got its glory back

— SS Motial

During this Silver Jubilee year of India’s leading telecom magazine Voice &Data, it is but natural to turn nostalgic and revisit the telecom scenario of the 1990s.

The era of 90s was perhaps the most evolutionary in India’s telecom history. It was the era that saw telecom services and manufacturing being opened up to the private sector.It also saw creation of various institutions like TRAI, TDSAT, BSNL, and DoT. It was during this period that the National Telecom Policy 1994 and the New Telecom Policy, 1999 were declared. Internet and mobile services were also launched. However, this article will focus on challenges faced by the domestic telecom manufacturing industry.

The main telecom product, switching equipment, was migrating from Strowger or Crossbar to solid state. Most of the systems were using hybrid technologies, a mix of transistors and integrated circuits. Hence, manufacturing infrastructure had to undergo major changes. While soldering machines were still needed, SMT machines with miniaturization had made automation and largescale production a reality.

Automation in testing made testing more reliable and faster. Multilayered boards made high-density manufacturing possible and thus, helped in reducing the size and cutting down power consumption by the systems. At the same time, manpower had to be retrained and re-deployed in manufacturing and aftersales services.

While MNCs were inducting their technologies, government-owned indigenous R&D company C-DOT inducted a variety of switches covering very large to small systems. Its rugged switch RAX 256, specially created for our rural environment was making waves, not only in India but on the global level as well. This technology also helped many medium-level companies to venture into manufacturing field.

Ministry, and Defence. Sales used to be on cost plus margin basis, so the company was always in profits. Once manufacturing was opened up, its turnover/profits tumbled to Rs 782/-283crore in 1995–96 from a peak of Rs 1,527/176 crore in 1993–94. Then suddenly the budget of ITI’s own R&D was cut. This had a huge demoralizing effect on its cadre and a few full-time directors, along with many other executives, resigned. Many MNCs and private companies gained from the talent exodus at ITI Ltd.

But the most important step taken was to build an aggressive marketing strategy, where competitors were taken head on. A notable example was ITI bidding lowest in an Rs 900-crore large switch tender, where even its technology provider Alcatel’s own company ModiAlcatel could not compete. for its border areas network ASCON Ph 3, against an international tender by the Ministry of Defence. These developments resulted in ITI coming back to its old glory. Its turnover and profits started growing at healthy ratesas is evident from the table.