BSES launches ISP business

Underscoring the need for translating the facilities provided by ISP to the common man, he said the company’s plan of launching kiosks at strategic places to provide information on various sectors to the common man, was a bold step.

Referring to the recent observation made by the US President Bill Clinton, on the growth of the infotech industry in India and its potential to reach great heights, Deshmukh said it was heartening to note that young Indian entrepreneurs had proved their mite in the IT sector abroad despite stiff competition on foreign soil.

“With Maharashtra claiming 30 per cent of India’s software exports, efforts were on to make Mumbai as India’s dotcom captial,” he said. The Chief Minister said with the IT sector becoming crucial to other industries, there was a need to tap the huge potential in the internet sector.

BSES Telecom will invest Rs 300-350 crore in Internet related areas, BSES Chairman and Managing Director RV Shahi said. “The investment will be made over the next 2-3 years,” he said.

BSES Telecom will provide service through optic fibre network (OFN), ethernet and dial-up mode. It has already built optic fibre network over 140km in its licensed area and the entire licensed area of 340 sq km is expected to be covered within next three months. BSES will charge the subsidiary for the network depending on the bandwidth usage. Furthermore, BSES would gain substantially from leasing the excess bandwidth available to clients other than its subsidiary.

The wholly-owned subsidiary will be listed at some point of time, though the time-frame is not certain. According to the management, it wants to build a strong company before getting it listed. The subsidiary has a 51:49 joint venture with Hyderabad based Sriven for web-ready multimedia content business. This company will also get listed. Moreover, BSES also intends to foray into software development focussing on power utilities.