NeST, Sun Fibre Optics bag All India ESC awards for exports

Kochi: Network Systems and Technologies (NeST) Pvt Ltd, a city-based company, has achieved a rare feat by bagging the All India ESC Awards for excellence in software and hardware exports instituted the Indian government.

NeST was selected for excellence in software exports while Kochi Export Processing Zone-based Sun Fibre Optics Ltd, one of the oldest companies under the group, was chosen in recognition of highest exports in telecommunication equipment in the small-scale industries sector for the year 2000-01 and 2001-02.

The All India ESC Awards to Exporters for Excellence were conferred on NeST by the Electronics and Computer Software Export Council of India (ESE), an autonomous agency under the ministry of communication and information technology, Government of India.

Union Minister for Communications and IT Arun Shourie presented the awards on 14 June at Hotel Ashok, New Delhi. Shourie, in his speech, said: "Although the Indian IT industry is adept at grasping opportunities, it often tends to overlook the hurdles that may arise in the future. The potential in hardware is unlimited, but we need to act fast before the advantages disappear."

ESC chairman Deepak Puri announcing the awards said the working committee of ESC selected member companies for these awards, "based on their export performance during the period."

"If you remember, we are one among the few Indian companies that have equal competencies and strengths in both hardware and software; we make our own computers as well, for exports and domestic markets," says N Jehangir, managing director, NeST, a Rs 450-crore diversified business group in Kerala.

Sun Fibre Optics generated a total revenue of Rs 6434.20 lakh in 2002-03 whereas NeST registered Rs 2,033.85 lakh during the fiscal.

The NeST group's 20-plus software and hardware manufacturing facilities are located in the US, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Bangalore and Mysore. The global operations of NeST are headed by chairman Javed Hassan, with over three decades of IT industry exposure in the US and Europe, while Jehangir handles the Indian operations.