Lifeline: BSNL aims Rs 500-crore revenue in FY16

TELECOM major state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is aiming a revenue of Rs 500 crore in the current financial year by making use of its land bank and monetisation of 75,000 towers, among others.

BSNL expects to generate Rs 500 crore revenue form utilising land bank, training...

centre and seven telecom factories as well as monetisation of its 75,000 towers.

The telecom operator that is reeling under tremendous pressure to stay afloat due to mounting lossess is mulling to enter intra-circle roaming pacts with other operators to monetise its network of over 75,000 base tower stations (BTS) or mobile towers.

Earlier, BSNL officials gave a presentation to telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad recently, which highlighted company's turnaround plan.

BSNL, which has got 82 land parcels, will also be augmenting its GSM mobile capacity in the current fiscal.

The operator is planning about 14,736 2G and 10,914 3G base tower stations in 2015-16. Apart from that it will be integrating its wi-fi hotspot and LTE (4G) with the existing GSM network.

Telecom Minister Prasad had asked BSNL to improve quality of services, especially in border and extremist-affected areas, in a bid to become market leader and win back people's confidence.

He said that the government is committed to revive BSNL and numbers of initiatives are in the pipeline to bring the PSU back to the position of market leader.

Prasad is also undertaking a series of meetings with MPs to make telecom officials directly answerable to Parliamentary representatives so as to have a first-hand account of public sectors performance, problems faced and possible solutions.

The minister directed DoT to call five such meetings so that all Members of Parliament are given opportunity to raise issues directly with officials concerned.

BSNL's profits started declining from Rs 10,183 crore in 2004-05 before recording a loss in 2009-10.

Earlier, admitting that the condition of state-owned telecom PSU major BSNL "was not very healthy", the Union government has said that it is giving priority to improve its functioning. In a reply in the Lok Sabha, Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government was giving priority to improve functioning of BSNL.