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Ambar Singh Roy

(From left) The Union Minister for Communication and IT, Mr Dayanidhi Maran; the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee; and the Chairman of Xenitis, Mr Santanu Ghosh, going around the company's new manufacturing unit at Chinsura in Hooghly district of West Bengal on Friday. — A. Roy Chowdhury

Chinsura (Hooghly Dist) , Aug. 5

THE report on a feasibility study on the proposed submarine cable landing station project connecting the east coast of India and the international gateway at Singapore via the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (A&N) is expected to be ready within the next three months, according to Mr Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology.

Addressing a function on Friday to mark the inauguration of the country's first computer components manufacturing facility here that has been set up by the Xenitis Group in collaboration with Unitech Computer Company Ltd of China at a cumulative investment of Rs 200 crore, Mr Maran said both Tamil Nadu and West Bengal were in the reckoning for the proposed submarine cable landing station project on the east coast.

A final decision in this regard would be taken after a detailed study of the feasibility report that was expected to see the light of the day within the next three months.

According to him, talks have been initiated with Indian Equipment Manufacturing Company of the US — which has been promoted by people of Indian origin and has a partnership with IBM — with a view to facilitating the setting up of a 60-micron semiconductor manufacturing facility in India on public-private partnership basis. The Government of India has agreed in-principle to facilitate the setting up of a joint venture in this regard.

Mr Maran said the target was to increase PC penetration in the country from 15 million units at present to 75 million units by 2010. Plans have also been firmed up to gradually provide connectivity to the six lakh villages in the country through gram service centres.

In his address, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, reiterated the State's demand for a submarine cable landing station and said it would go a long way in providing additional bandwidth to IT companies in the State.

He said West Bengal had proved its capabilities in the software and ITES sectors and now the time had come to display prowess in IT hardware. "If we can do it, then there is no stopping us in the entire IT spectrum," he said.

The Xenitis Group has launched its own brand of computers under the `Aamar PC' brand in the East, `Aamchi PC' in the West, `Aapna PC' in the North and `Namma PC' in the South.

The company's manufacturing facility at Chinsura is equipped to manufacture 20,000 personal computer units per month, besides nine lakh units of computer components. It will provide direct employment to 1,700 people. The company hopes to notch a turnover of Rs 550 crore in the current fiscal, up from Rs 180 crore recorded in 2004-05.

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