Swiss Firm R&M To Scale Up India Manufacturing Facility

NEW DELHI: Swiss fibre major Reichle & De-Massari AG, or R&M, is planning to scale up its research & development (R&D) and manufacturing activities in India to tap into the demand created by the government’s mega fibre push amid the countdown to the fifth-generation (5G) technology-based telecom service rollout.

“In future, we are planning to further strengthen our Bengaluru operations for manufacturing as well as R&D,” R&M chairman Hans Hess told ET, adding that the government initiatives gave the company spirit for expansion.

The Switzerland-based company had recently set up manufacturing operations in Bengaluru under the Centre’s Make in India initiative to supply fibre to telecom carriers and data centres worldwide. He didn’t mention any investment figures.

“India is a very strategic and third-largest market for R&M globally and has made significant investments. We are also planning to increase our sales and services operations by increasing partners across the country,” the top executive said.

Hess said that the company has not only made investments in the country but has also created job opportunities with a nearly five-fold jump in the workforce, adding that the company could double the headcount in the next few years.

The company has recently acquired US-based fibre connectivity firm Optimum Fiberoptics that specializes in industrial and governmental markets.

The Narendra Modi-led government, in its effort to connect India digitally, has doubled the nationwide optical fibre coverage from 7 lakh km in May 2014 to 15 lakh km at the end of 2018, and aims to enhance the fibre footprint five-fold by 2022.

“Less percentage of people in India are connected to fibre, and we would like to help move this number forward. I think the National Fibre Authority (NFA) would surely support this,” Hess, also a chairman of electronics manufacturer Comet AG, said.

Aruna Sundararajan-headed Department of Telecommunications (DoT) aims to set up an autonomous agency, NFA, as envisaged in the recently-unveiled National Digital Communications Policy 2018, to ease out fibre deployment as the country embarks on a roadmap to embrace next-generation of technology.

“5G is an interesting initiative, and with the increase in consumption of data, a strong backbone is needed that can be built on fibre,” Hess said.

The DoT has lately taken up some ease of doing business initiatives to put necessary telecom infrastructure deployment on the fast track, including resolving the long-standing right-of-way (RoW) bottleneck, ahead of the much-awaited 5G foray into the Indian market.

Hess also said that the government’s flagship initiatives are benefitting both — consumers and stakeholders.

Source: ET

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