- Wednesday, March 12, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE Narendra Modi cabinet has approved a revival package of Rs 1.64 lakh crore (£17 billion) for the government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Ashwini Vaishnaw, the country’s minister of communications, said on Wednesday (27).
The package will feature three main elements — aiming at improving the quality of BSNL services; de-stressing the balance sheet and expanding the company’s fiber network by merging it with Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL).
The package will include a cash support worth Rs 43,964 crore (£4.5 billion) and non-cash support of Rs 1.2 lakh core (£12.4 billion), Vaishnaw said. The revival programme is for a period of four years but most of it will be implemented in the first two years, the minister added.
He also said that the cash part will be used for allocating spectrum, capital expenditure and viability gap funding.
“To improve existing services and provide 4G services, BSNL will be allotted Spectrum in 900/1800 MHz band administratively at the cost of Rs 44,993 crore (£4.6 billion) through equity infusion. With this spectrum, BSNL will be able to compete in the market and provide high speed data using their vast network including in rural areas,” an official release said.
Union Cabinet approves project for saturation of 4G mobile services in all uncovered villages of the country through Universal Service Obligation Fund, at an estimated cost of Rs 26,316 Crores: Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw pic.twitter.com/CMtf5fnow5
— ANI (@ANI) July 27, 2022
The government also said that the BSNL is in the process of deploying “Atmanirbhar 4G” technology stack.
“To meet the projected capital expenditure for next 4 years, the government will fund capex of Rs 22,471 crore (£2.3 billion). This will be a significant boost to development and deployment of Atmanirbhar 4G stack,” it said.
The government will also provide Rs 13,789 crore (£1.4 billion) to the state-run telecom provider as viability gap funding for commercially unviable rural wire-line operations done during 2014-15 to 2019-20.
To de-stress the balance sheet, statutory dues worth Rs 33,404 crore (£3.4 billion) will be converted into equity.
At the end of May, private access service providers held 89.87 per cent market share of the wireless subscribers in India, whereas BSNL and MTNL (Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited) — the two government access service providers — had a market share of a paltry 10.13 percent, as per a release issued by India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on July 19.
The revival plan is also expected to generate significant amount of employment.
The government “expects 1 lakh (0.1 million) employment to be generated”, Vaishnaw said.
