Friday, December 9 2005 15:10 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: Concerned over the health of their telecom business, the Tata Group has planned an investment of Rs 5,000 crore over next 2-3 years while expecting the telecom ventures to come to the big league by around 2008.

The Tata Group, having three major players VSNL, Tata Teleservices Ltd and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd in its stable, has identified telecom as the main thrust area and projects a Rs 5,000 crore investment for spreading the services, building network and providing handsets, etc.

"The telecom business is not doing well. While VSNL is making profit, the other two are not. We will see that they join the other Tata Group companies in maintaining better performance," Tata Sons director Dr J J Irani said at an interaction with the press here last night.

"The Group has already put in around Rs 5,000 crore on its telecom projects, including the acquisition of VSNL," he said.

A late starter in the high growth segment, the Tatas were currently in a phase of spreading its services across India and has crossed six million customer base, adding one million new customers every other month.

"Telecom is a business where you have to first establish a wide presence before the revenue flow starts. We were a late starter, but have now covered all the regions except the northeast sector," Irani said.

"Stating that another Rs 5,000 crore will go into the telecom sector," Irani said, "We expect TTSL and TTML to turnaround by 2-3 years."