NEW DELHI: State-owned telecom operator BSNL reported a loss of Rs 57,671 crore since inception while MTNL lost nearly Rs 14,989 crore till March 2022. Minister of state telecom Devusinh Chauhan said the reasons for the loss are high employee costs over the years, debt burden, stiff competition in the market and lack of 4G services (except on a limited basis in certain areas).
On the question of pumping money into the loss-making telco, he said both telcos are important for implementing citizen-centric schemes of the government, especially in rural and remote uncovered areas. “BSNL has provided 24,58,827 FTTH (fibre to the home) connections as of September 30, 2022.
Further, in line with the Atma-nirbhar initiative of the government, BSNL was directed to deploy the Indian 4G stack. BSNL has floated the tender in October 2022 for its requirement of 1 lakh 4G sites,” said the minister in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.
Recently, telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said BSNL’s 4G technology will be upgraded to 5G in the next five-seven months. BSNL has about 1,35,000 mobile towers across the country with a very strong presence in the rural belt. Rural areas are yet to be covered by private telecom operators. For rolling out its 4G networks, it is going to use an indigenous 4G technology stack, which will be upgraded to 5G in the next few months.
The government has been trying to revive the loss-making telco, in 2019 it approved the revival plan for BSNL and MTNL, which includes a reduction in employee costs through a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS), debt restructuring by raising sovereign guarantee bonds, administrative allotment of spectrum for 4G services through capital infusion, monetisation of core and non-core assets and in-principle approval of the merger of BSNL and MTNL.
Recently, in a bid to revive the telco and make it a viable public sector undertaking (PSU), the government gave a relief package of `1.64 lakhs crore on July 27, 2022.
“As a result of these, BSNL and MTNL have become EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) positive since the financial year 2020-21,” said Devusinh Chauhan.