Nagpur: Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd, the telecommunications arm of the Tata group for western India operations, on Monday said it expects 1.5 lakh subscribers in the first year of the launch of its code division multiple access (CDMA) services in five cities of Maharashtra.

Ajay Pandey, chief operating officer, said the company had an outlay of Rs 3,400 crore for basic and limited mobility projects in the state, including Rs 350 crore for CDMA services alone.

“We expect to turn net profit positive by March 2005,” he said. Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) holds the licence to provide services in Maharashtra and Goa.

Pandey said the CDMA services will be offered under the brand name of Tata Indicom initially in Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nasik and Aurangabad and will be later extended to other centres.

“We expect to launch the services in another 12-16 weeks after necessary permissions and certifications from various government authorities come through,” he said.

Tata Teleservices already has a wide network in the state, acquired via picking a controlling stake in Hughes Tele.com (India).

Pandey said the company has recorded revenues of Rs 276 crore in 2001-02, making it one of the largest private basic telecom players in the country in terms of revenue. The company has also invested around Rs 2,900 crore on its broadband network.

Pandey said the company has 2.10 lakh subscribers for wired line services in Maharashtra. He said, Tata Indicom was already offering CDMA services in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and New Delhi.

“We have over a lakh subscribers in Andhra Pradesh alone,” he said adding that the company estimated user charges to be in the range of Rs 500-600 per handset in a billing cycle for Maharashtra.

Pandey said cell sites had been identified in Maharashtra and Goa and switches would soon be put in place to provide cutting edge technology CDMA services.

He also said that the company was also alert to its commitment of providing village public telephones in 8,000 villages in the state and has already made the services available in 1,350 villages.

“Fifty per cent of these are in Vidarbha and we expect to complete our commitment by December 2003,” he said.

Reluctant to divulge the price structure for the CDMA services, Pandey said, it would be competitive and relevant to market requirements.

He also revealed that attractive price plans would be prepared to provide customers an array of services as value-added offers.

The offers would be IP-based and conceded that services from VSNL (acquired by the Tatas) could also form a part of the package.

Pande said, Tata Teleservices was not too particular about the handset that a subscriber wished to use provided it suited their network.

“Handsets are network specific and our only concern would be to see that they work on our network,” he said.

Though not directly in the business of handset retailing, Tata Teleservices will be approving handset models priced at between Rs 5,000 and Rs 20,000, depending on the facilities a subscriber desires.

CDMA technology enables transfer of voice and data and handsets can even contain a built-in camera. The cost of the handsets goes up with facilities such as animation graphics, multimedia messaging services, blue tooth software, poly rings, enhanced messaging service etc are also desired for use by the subscriber.