Group chairman Ratan Tata has called a meeting of Tata chief executives on February 2 for a day-long brain-storming session. The "usual annual meeting", as Tata executives call it, will be held this year in Mumbai, breaking a tradition of holding it away from the commercial capital and Tata backyard.

The February 2 meeting promises to be more than an annual jamboree -- the Tatas have already set themselves a two-year deadline for completion of the recast. The constitution of the central committees is believed to be the chief issue on the agenda. Senior group officials may sit on more than one committee, and sources say industry experts may also be roped in.

The other critical issues to be taken up include unveiling the new Tata logo and a discourse on the Tata Brand Equity Scheme.

A Tata group spokesperson, when contacted, refused to comment on the meeting, saying: "It is a matter internal to the group."

Over the last 18 months, speculation has been rife that the Tata group will reduce the number of group companies to a third and total businesses to around 10 core areas. However, senior Tata officials have always scoffed at such theories as being mere rumours.

The Tatas have already announced the launch of the Tata Brand Equity Scheme, in which only nine companies will participate in the first year. The chairman is expected to formally take the CEOs through the basic tenets of a common group identity that the group proposes to standardise across all companies.

The group chairman has kept the top brass in suspense since last year, when he withdrew a previous announcement of a sneak preview of the Tata logo, which has been designed by the UK-based design consultant Walf Ollins.

The meeting of the top Tata group officials will be the second such meeting in the last six months. At the last meeting in August, the group had formally arrived at the decision to appoint business review committees for each of the top group companies.

A crucial part of the overall restructuring, the primary objective of the review committees which comprises the company directors as well as some senior officials from other group companies, is to chalk out, oversee and implement a long-term business plan for each company.

The Tata group has also set up a three-member executive office under the chairman which will oversee the entire group restructuring. The committee presently includes former Hindustan Lever vice-chairman R Gopalkrishnan, Tata Steel finance director Ishaat Hussain and group HR head Manab Bose, but is likely to be expanded soon.

Group insiders say the formation of the sector-specific committees will only facilitate the restructuring process. Even without such a think tank, the officials point out, the group has initiated processes like transferring the captive power units of cement major ACC to the Tata Electric Companies.

However, the overlapping of operations is not that rampant in the Tata group as in some of the other Indian business houses, say Tata group watchers. A possibility that exists, they say, is streamlining of operations into clear business groups with the aim of becoming the largest in their industry in the country.