The government on Thursday ruled out any plans to sell stake or disinvestment of ailing telecom PSUs — Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) in the Parliament while fixing a target of ₹200 crore and ₹300 crore for them from their asset monetisation in current fiscal.
While the specific assets to be monetised during the current fiscal year have yet not been identified, the target for asset monetisation during the current fiscal year for BSNL and MTNL is ₹200 crore and ₹300 crore respectively, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.
“(There is) no proposal for disinvestment of BSNL and MTNL is under consideration”, he said.
State run BSNL’s losses for the year 2018-19 has doubled to nearly ₹15,000 crore from 2017-18 and revenue has also dwindled to ₹19,321 crore in fiscal 2019.
In a written reply to Rajya Sabha, Telecom Minister said MTNL operates in metros of Delhi and Mumbai while BSNL operates in rest of India. The Cabinet has approved the revival plan for BSNL and MTNL which inter-alia, includes in-principle approval for merger of BSNL and MTNL. The merger will benefit BSNL/MTNL through pan-India footprint, synergy in operations, reduced fixed costs and overheads, sharing of technical infrastructure and enhanced Enterprise Business.
As per the figures given by him in 2018-19, BSNL posed a loss of ₹14,903 crore and the loss was ₹7,993 crore in 2017-18 and ₹4,793 crore in 2016-17. MTNL posted a loss of ₹3,398 crore in 2018-19, ₹2,971 crore in 2017-18 and ₹2016-17 as well.
The revenue of BSNL in 2017-18 was ₹25,071 crore and ₹31,533 crore in 2016-17. MTNL’s revenue was ₹3,552 crore in 2016-17, ₹3,116 crore in 2017-18 and ₹2,607 crore in 2018-19.
Source: Mint