Local mobile, laptop, solar panel soon

Telephone Shilpo Sangstha and Cable Shilpo Sangstha have taken up three mega projects to produce digital telephone sets, cellphones, fibre-optic cables, solar panels and laptops in the country.

Of the five products, the digital telephone sets costing as low as Tk 500 will hit the market next month while cellphones priced between Tk 1,500 and 10,000 will be sold from January next year. Fibre optic cables will arrive in December next year.

Bangladesh-made laptops and solar panels will also hit the market soon. Estimated prices of laptops, solar panels and fibre-optic cables are yet to be fixed.

Hasanul Haq Inu, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on post and telecommunications ministry, told this to reporters after a meeting of the committee held at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban.

"Telephone Shilpo Sangstha and Cable Shilpo Sangstha, two organisations under Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, have taken up three mega projects to produce mobile phones, digital telephone sets, laptops, fibre-optic cables and solar panels which will help build a digital Bangladesh," Inu, also president of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, said.

Inu also said TSS and CSS will become profitable ventures once they implement these mega projects.

TSS, situated at Gazipur, Dhaka, is currently incurring loss while CSS in Khulna is making a marginal profit.

"CSS in its new plant will manufacture fibre-optic cables instead of copper cables, " Inu said, adding that the CSS will be able to meet the country's 75 percent fibre-optic cable demand.

The fibre optic cable manufacturing project is worth Tk 10 crore and evaluation of a tender in this regard is now going on, he added.

Inu said fibre-optic cables have been installed in an unplanned way across the country and the parliamentary watchdog asked authorities concerned to take appropriate measures so that the cables are installed in a planned manner from now on.

Inu also said CSS will go for manufacturing household electrical accessories and telephone accessories, which would save foreign exchange. TSS in Gazipur will manufacture the digital telephone sets, said the committee chief.

Even poor people will be able to afford these telephone sets as their prices would be between Tk 500 and Tk 600, Inu said.

TSS will also manufacture the cellphones in cooperation with Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.

"People will also be able to purchase these cellphones as prices will be between Tk 1,500 and Tk 10,000," Inu added.

Replying a question, the committee chief said network expansion of Teletalk will start very soon. "Teletalk will become the number one mobile operator in the country," he said.