TEMA plans $100bln telecom equipment manufacturing by 2010

New Delhi, Oct 25 (UNI) Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association of India (TEMA) today announced its plans to take the level of telecom equipment manufacturing in India to 100 billion dollars by 2010 from the present 26 billion dollars.

''The main focus of our aggressive plan will be rural areas, where the telecom density is just two per cent as against 35-40 per cent in the urban sector,'' TEMA President P S Ramesh told reporters here.

Under a two-pronged strategy, the Association will facilitate cost cutting in the sector and will correspond with the government for extension of tax incentives to companies to set up manufacturing units in rural areas.

As a first step towards this, it has recommended the lowering of excise duty on telecom equipment from 60 per cent to between 8-16 per cent. The recommendation was submitted to the Department of Telecom (DoT).

''The DoT has passed on the recommendation to the Commerce Ministry. We expect that the government will incorporate it in the next budget,'' TEMA Secretary General Rakesh Malik said.

Through the plan, TEMA's aim is to enable the sector to meet local and export requirements and to place India on the global telecom manufacturing map besides providing state-of-the-art carrier class technology to the operators and service provider, its Vice President Bharat Bhatia said.

The Association has also planned to expand its role to cover the entire gamut of telecom sector including equipments, integration, value added services, content and application providers in addition to telecom operators to meet the requirements of Defence, Railways and other enterprises.

It also intends to promote manufactrure of telecom equipement in Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Nokia and Flextronics has already started operation in their respective SEZs in Chennai.

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