If you stepped back a little, in 1990, our stake in Tata Steel was only seven per cent and that in Telco was just 15 per cent to 16 per cent, some of which was held by Tisco.

In 1991, we decided to increase our shareholding in group companies and our first target was to hold not less than 26 per cent in all group companies. Tisco, Telco and Tata Power were the problem companies where we were well below the 26 per cent target but now we are there. For the time being, hiking our stake in group companies is not a priority area. We don't intend increasing our levels of shareholding any further and we are not targeting a 51 per cent level or any such thing.

We were a benevolent organisation and we continue to be one. But with the changing business scenario, the definition of benevolence has hanged. Our feeling for staff cannot be thrown out of the window so we will have to strike the right balance between benevolence and professionalism. But non-performance is taken very seriously. Look at Tisco. The company was heavily overstaffed but we managed to bring down our staff through voluntary retirement schemes. People that have retired voluntarily have been looked after. They are still entitled to many of the benefits that they enjoyed as employees of the company.

The jury is out on this issue. But the way I see it, there's no rigid old economy-new economy dichotomy per se. The new economy is only going to enable the old economy to operate in a more efficient manner. If you look at the rate of growth of the auto, steel and hotels sectors in India, they are far below the rate of growth for an emerging economy. So there is still reasonable scope for growth.

A good pointer is the Chinese steel industry. Growth there has been phenomenal. Capacity has grown from 30 million tonnes to 125 million tonnes in just 10 years, while in India capacity has increased from just 12 million tonnes to 25 million tonnes.

Infrastructure is non-existent in India but growth in this sector offers a huge amount of potential. Tisco, which is among the three lowest cost producers of steel in the world, offers huge cost benefits. India needs to get on the eight per cent growth path if there must be any real growth in these sectors. But the new industries like telecom and internet services will definitely have higher growth rates. India is well positioned as far as new industries are concerned. For us, there would be an equal amount of focus on our old and new economy companies.

We are working towards taking the company public. But there are a number of issues that need to be addressed. At present, TCS is a huge cash resource for the Tata group and that resource would be lost once we take the company public. But that said, there is no denying the enormous value in TCS and we are constantly looking at ways of unlocking that.

We would definitely like to be more in the branded side of the business. In fact, we are even trying our hand at branding steel. But we do have some very good brands in the market like the Tata truck, the Indica car, Voltas, Tata Salt, Tata Tea, Titan, and Trent. We would like to brand more and more of our products. In 1999-00, our brand driven sales grew 26 per cent while product driven sales were up only 10 per cent. Brand driven sales accounted for only 41 per cent of group sales in 1999-00, but we expect to increase brand driven sales to 66 per cent of group sales by 2002-03. We are in a market driven economy today and the best way to get closer to the consumer is through branded products.

We would like to be in any business that has good growth prospects, is intrinsically profitable and where the Tata group can be a good parent. It doesn't really matter which industry we are in. We have already exited the cement and pharma businesses because we decided we couldn't be good parents. Recently, we also exited Hitech Drilling. But yes, we do have a very wide spread of companies and must constantly evaluate them. The evaluation is an ongoing process and you will hear of more exits. You may not hear of the Tatas exiting companies but companies exiting businesses. That is the sort of restructuring that is currently going on within the group and within companies aimed at enhancing shareholder value. For instance, by merging Tata Hydro and Andhra Valley into Tata Power, we were able to significantly increase shareholder value.

I think you need to give us some time. How long have we been in the cars business? Barely three years? We have created a very successful commercial vehicle and have demonstrated that we Indians are capable of developing an indigenous car. The Indica is brilliantly positioned price-wise. We expected the heavy commercial vehicle market to grow and sustain the car project but it is unfortunate that the economic downturn has affected our truck sales which in turn pushed Telco deep into the red. In any case, the losses on the Iridica project are only as projected and we expect to break even as targeted. We've taken along-term view on this project, so why should we exit?