Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of Tata firms, has decided to significantly reduce the number of subsidiaries to make the group ‘leaner and stronger’ with its main focus on the sunrise telecom sector. "The idea is to keep the number of subsidiaries to the minimum to have better operations," Tata Sons director JJ Irani told newsmen here on Thursday. He said that each major company of the Tata group like Tata Steel, Tata Power, Tata Tea would look into its own subsidiaries and decide whether to merge with the parent company or hive off.

Stating that Tatas would disinvest in units where it did not have core competence, Mr Irani said for each such company there has to be a proper solution. Mr Irani, also the chairman of Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL), said that the group’s main thrust now would be on the telecom sector. "Our new area of investment will be telecom for which Rs 8,500 crore investments have been lined up for TTSL alone."

When asked whether there was a possibility of a merger between TTSL and VSNL, the reserves of which have been planned to be deployed, Mr Irani said that there was no such plan in the immediate or short term. Mr Irani said that telecom was a very fast developing regime. There were many areas in which one could go. "We are now evaluating them. We will not go blindly in making investments there."

Mr Irani, also the former managing director of Tata Steel, however, made it clear that TISCO would not invest in telecom although the company has certain cross holdings in TTSL. He said that Hughes, which is in basic telephony, would be merged with TTSL and there would be a separate investment programme for it. Mr Irani said that a committee was formed to coordinate operations of the various telecom companies of the Tata group and the Tata Strategic Management group would do the necessary exercise.