JMS Worldwide would have 49 per cent stake while TCIL would hold 40 per centequity in the company that would target mainly corporate clients. Thecompany would use various media including satellite network and opticalfibre cable network of Indian Oil Corporation and Ircon for operatingIntranet and Internet services, TCIL chairman and managing director ASBansal told PTI in an interview.

``TCIL will seek Cabinet approval for floating a separate company in a jointventure with JMS Worldwide within the next few days,'' he said.

The company would begin with an investment of Rs 150 crore of which Rs 75crore would be equity, Bansal said, adding the remaining 11 per cent equitywould be offered to local distributors of the service.

Bansal said IOC's fibrelink that ran parallel to its product and crudepipelines would be used as a backbone for providing Internet services andadded that IOC would be accommodated as an equity partner if the publicsector oil giant desired it.

Bansal said both TCIL and JMS Worldwide were willing to dilute their staketo give equity to IOC or Ircon.

TCIL has already signed a memorandum of understanding with Ircon for usingits OFC lines between Mumbai and Delhi while the discussion with IOC was inan advanced stage, he said.

Bansal said his company would work closely with IOC, which had big plans forexpanding its communication network, though technology was available toachieve a lot of bandwidth with the existing network itself.

Ruling out the company's presence in retail Internet business, Bansal saidthat for capturing larger market share, the new venture would concentrateonly on big corporate houses who had branches all over the country. TCIL,which recorded a turnover of Rs 647.31 crore during 1998-99 as against Rs592.28 crore in the previous year, has been working in 44 countries indifferent projects. The company has developed expertise in the field ofsoftware support, switching, transmission, consultancy, turnkey execution ofcellular services projects, WLL technology, etc.