| BSNL 2011-12 loss at Rs88.5b as costs rise |
NEW DELHI The financial loss of state-run telecom firm BSNL touched Rs88.51 billion during 2011-12, Parliament was informed on Friday.
The figures presented by Minister of State for Communications and IT Milind Deora in a written reply in Rajya Sabha shows losses by BSNL during the last three financial years starting 2009-10 when it reported loss of Rs18.23 billion.
BSNL’s profit had started declining continuously from Rs101.83 billion in 2004-05 before showing a loss in 2009-10.
During 2010-11, BSNL losses rose to Rs63.84 billion mainly due to hefty outgo on employees’ salary and expenses borne by the PSU for procuring 3G and BWA spectrum.
BSNL officials had attributed widening of the losses mainly on account of payment made to the government to procure 3G and BWA licences for which it paid a total of Rs185 billion.
BSNL has proposed to surrender some spectrum and seeking refund for the same but no decision has yet been taken by Department of Telecommunications.
The total revenues of the company at the end of FY11 was Rs288.76 billion.
BSNL has submitted a proposal of Voluntary Retirement Scheme as part of its efforts to revive the loss-making company. The government is yet to approve it.
Meanwhile, BSNL is planning to invest around Rs40 million to transform its landline services that will bring a host of modern facilities including video calling and free call transfer from mobile phones, by end of this financial year.
“We have started process of converting all our exchanges in to NGN (next generation network) exchanges. This will bring to landlines all facilities that are currently available on mobile phones like video calling, call transfer, directory among others,” BSNL chairman and managing director RK Upadhyay said.
Agencies
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