The scheme will be extended to all other Tata companies from the second year onwards, and the fund corpus will increase to around Rs 40-50 crore.

The Tata companies which will subscribe to the scheme in the first year include Tata Steel, Telco, Tata Tea, Tata Chemicals, Tata Electric companies, Tata International and Tata Industries.

The new Tata logo, which is being registered in the country now, will be owned by Tata Sons, the holding company of the group. An international registration of the Tata brand will follow.

Tata Sons has also put in place a three-member committee headed by Tata Sons director R Gopalkrishnan to oversee the launch andimplementation of the scheme. The other members of the committee include Tata Steel executive director Ishaat Hussain and the group HR head Manab Bose.

Tata group officials, however, did not disclose the exact composition of the remaining two tiers into which the Tata group companies have been divided. It is believed that there could be some changes in the originally announced group segmentation.

Some significant exclusions in the list of Tata companies which will not subscribe to the scheme in the first year are Indian Hotels, The Associated Cement Companies, Rallis and Voltas.

While the first-rung companies directly use the Tata name, the "degree of association" is less for the lower-rung ones. The top-rung companies will contribute 0.25 per cent of their annual net income (or profit after tax) as subscription fees to the scheme, while the two lower-rungs will contribute 0.15 per cent and 0.10 per cent of their profit after tax, respectively.

The scheme is aimed at making a cooperative effort topromote a unified Tata brand, which collectively could match the brand equity of other international brand names.

Tata Sons has accepted the obligation of promoting and protecting the Tata brand and the individual subscribers to the scheme. It will also make available group resources for individual companies in the areas of Tata values, practices, financial and strategic management, legal and economic matters and others.

Group firms sign conduct code

The Tata group has formally adopted the `Tata Code of Conduct' in nine major companies. Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Sons, has signed the Code of Conduct on December 18 with Tata Steel, Telco, Tata Tea, Tata Chemicals, Tata Electric Companies, Tata International and Tata Industries.

A similar agreement was also signed with the divisions of Tata Sons. A Tata release quoted Ratan Tata as saying, "The formalisation of the Code of Conduct is a testament to the value the group attaches to its assets and determination to aid in every way the groupcompanies and employees to understand where their duties lie in any situation."

Tata also signed the Brand Equity and business promotion agreement, the release said. The agreement is a response to the new edge in the competitive environment following the liberalisation and increasing globalisation of the economy, it added.