New Delhi, Aug 25 - The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), the country's premier telecommunications research and development centre, turned 25 Tuesday.

'In all these years, C-DOT has been in the technology forefront and significantly contributed in the indigenisation of telecom technology, digitilisation, bridging the digital divide between urban and rural, establishing strong telecom manufacturing infrastructure and employment generation,' said C-DOT executive director P.V. Acharya.

Added Sam Pitroda, National Knowledge Commission chairman who founded C-DOT: 'C-DOT was established as an independent society to help develop a series of digital switching products to meet Indian requirements. At that time, we had about two million phones for 750 million people.'

Maintaining that C-DOT 'planted the right seeds' for the an information and communication technology (ICT) revolution a quarter century ago, Pitroda told IANS: 'The spirit of private enterprise helped it grow to a substantial industry.'

C-DOT has today realigned efforts and defined its roadmap with a focus on developmental schemes for the 11th five Year Plan period.

The company plans to implement projects of national and strategic importance for rural India through the shared GSM Radio Access Network, which is currently under development and expected to give a definite fillip to business in the hinterland.