New Delhi, Feb. 18 :    New Delhi, Feb. 18:  Videsh Sanchar Nigam (VSNL) will sew up a tighter telecom portfolio and may do away with some of its excess baggage. The projects likely to be shelved include its cellular venture and its proposed participation in Project Oxygen Network. The company is in the process of creating a compact portfolio, with a slew of services to be rolled out in a phased manner. Recently, the VSNL board agreed to either defer or shelve those projects whose viability has been questioned and credit ratings downgraded by international agencies. 'It is important that we focus on businesses which increase profit. We do not wish to carry baggage which will become a liability and make the company sick,' a VSNL director said. As a result, the state-owned international telecom carrier is likely to shelve its cellular venture and will focus on entering the basic fixed telephony and direct-to-home services. Recently, chairman S. K. Gupta had hinted that VSNL might shelve the cellular venture. 'With the government permitting fixed line operators to provide limited mobility, we have decided to re-consider our entry into cellular business,' he said. While the company has filed applications to become a fixed line service provider in Delhi, Maharashtra and a few southern states, it is not keen on cellular services. It has also shelved the company - Videsh Sanchar Service (VSSL) - created to offer cellular services and other value-added features. Meanwhile VSNL's decision to disassociate from Project Oxygen was discussed at the board meeting. 'Our participation in Project Oxygen may not be pursued further, since there have been some disturbing reports about the project. It is unlikely that we will participate further unless we get assurances from the promoters. We have other commitments. There was no equity participation in the MoU and it was limited to laying down infrastructure and dealing with policy issues,' sources in VSNL said. VSNL had signed a memorandum of understanding in July 1998 with Project Oxygen, the company that will build and operate Project Oxygen Network. The agreement enabled it to buy capacity on the network, a global undersea optical fibre cable system. POL, the Bermuda-based fibre optic network major, was in negotiations with several other internet service providers to fund the $ 100-million first phase of international data transmission project. The international fibre optic network of Project Oxygen would have entered India at Vishakhapatnam and run across to Mumbai and Bangalore, besides several other Indian cities. The company had plans to sell connectivity in 40-50 cities from its cable landing station in Vishakhapatnam. However, the project was held up due to lack of funds from international agencies. 'We are not confident about the project. We do not want it to land us in an Iridium-like predicament. We had invested close to Rs 53 crore in the project. More important, though there was no equity involved, we had made major investments in setting up the gateway and other infrastructure.' Project Oxygen is a part of the $ 4.3-billion global project, which proposes to connect 24 countries covering 1.05 lakh kilometres by July 2002.