New Delhi, Nov 17:
State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has set aside Rs. 7,700
crore as capital expenditure in 2015-16 and will spend this on Next
Generation Network (NGN), mobile phase 7 expansion, wi-fi, among others,
its CMD Anupam Shrivastava has said.
The capital expenditure last year was Rs. 3,300 crore, he said.
“BSNL is on the path of revival. July onwards, additional customers have
doubled. Mobile network portability has become positive in BSNL’s
favour which means it has seen a net gain in customers via MNP,”
Shrivastava said at a press conference here.
In the last two years, 25,000 additional mobile towers have been set up and now BSNL has over a lakh towers in the country.
“There has been a 42 per cent rise in revenue from tower business in
2014-15. We plan to set up a subsidiary tower company to monetise our
tower assets. While we have the Cabinet nod, we are waiting for
inter-ministerial committee recommendations for this,” he said.
The company plans to focus on data to drive growth and is enhancing
mobile network data capacity to improve coverage and quality of service.
“The per day throughput in mobile has crossed 250 terabytes. This used
to be 70 terabytes in 2013,” Shrivastava said.
BSNL’s income from services has increased by 4.16 per cent to Rs. 27,242 crore in 2014-15 compared to the previous year.
“This is a five-year high for the company,” he said, adding that while
the revenue has gone up, administrative expenses have come down on
account of falling employee strength due to retirements.
PTI adds:
BSNL today reported an operating profit of Rs. 672 crore for the financial year 2015 on the back of fall in administrative costs and jump in revenues.
The company had posted an operating loss of Rs. 691 crore in the previous fiscal.