THE INDIAN TELEPHONE INDUSTRIES BANGALORE

As I mentioned somewhere my father worked for nearly 40 years at the Indian Telephone Industries also called ITI. After independence the Govt of India put up many public sector units in India and ITI is one of them. It is a large Industrial township with many houses built for staff. To some extent it can be said that National Highway 4 runs through the ITI territory.

What a great place it is. During the heydays in the 1970's and early 1980's ITI must have had 25000 employees nearly 200 buses and made telephones and exchanges largely strowger and crossbar exchanges. In the 1990's with privatization the role of ITI began to dwindle with voluntary retirement given to employees and production almost coming to a halt, In 1986 I spent a month inside ITI as a trainee during my stint at engineering college.

ITI used to hold an annual sports meet every year in the summer with games like basketball, volleyball and kabaddi being played. Teams used to come from all over India for the event. I remember I K Gupta,C S S Rao, Swaminathan, K P P Nambiar were all Managing Directors of ITI. ITI has a park in which carnivals were conducted once in a while. ITI hospital is also an enterprise worth mentioning.

But ITI is in a sorry state after 1995 with large scale reduction of employees and not much production. The buses were sold off and the entire township wore a dejected look. Government policies and telecom revolution can be attributed to the decay of ITI.

It would also be worthy to mention about the ITI auditorium or theater where cinema used to be shown every day in the evening and three shows on a sunday. I have seen many block busters in this theater like "Sholay", "Amar Akbar Anthony" in the 1970's

Ramamurthy nagar, Vijanapura and Krishnarajapura are all adjoining areas of ITI; Can ITI be revived is a very vital question and discussed in many quarters. Some years back another public sector in Bangalore HAL was in the doldrums but miraculously revived as a result of globalization. ITI seems to be caught in crossfires and whirlwinds of many kinds. But I still beleive ITI can be revived and the re-birth will result in a transformed ITI. How could ITI be revived...? Please study the following points;

• ITI must be renamed as INDIAN TELECOM INDUSTRIES as against the present name of INDIAN TELEPHONE INDUSTRIES.
• Alongside making exchanges the company must make wire less equipments too of various kinds for the global market.
• There must be increased synergy between ITI and other public sectors like BEL and ISRO.
• An INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TELECOM must be established inside the premises.
• Finally the Government must ensure that the CMD of ITI is a telecom graduate and has vast experience in wired and wireless telecom along with managerial degree or expertise.