The Minister of State for Communications Devusinh Chauhan has very clearly informed the parliament on Wednesday that the Indian government has no plans for the disinvestment of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd or BSNL. The minister stated it in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. The letter also emphasised the fact that there is no delay or deficiency in the services provided by the government-owned telco due to the implementation of the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) in early 2020.
The Current Scenario
Devusinh Chauhan in his letter stated that the current number of employees of the telecom operator is quite sufficient for smooth operations. The question was raised regarding the immovable assets of the BSNL to which Chauhan replied that there is not even a consideration of disinvestment of BSNL. The immovable assets of the telco include buildings, lands, towers, telecom equipment and non-telecom equipment. These immovable assets as of March 31, 2021, add up to Rs 89,878 Crore according to the audited financials. Moreover, as of December 31, 2021, BSNL’s share across India for mobile subscribers was 9.90% and for the wired broadband services, it was 15.40%. For those unaware, the government had introduced a revival plan for BSNL back in October 2019. This revival plan included the introduction of VRS for employees of 50 years of age and above to reduce the staff cost along with administrative allotment of spectrum for providing 4G services with funding through budgetary allocation. The measures also involved monetisation of non-core and core assets to generate resources to retire debt as well as meet capital expenditure and other requirements and debt restructuring by raising sovereign guarantee bonds. Chauhan further informed that consequently, BSNL has now become EBITDA positive which means it has operating profit in 2020-2021. Separately, Chauhan was also asked about the national digital communications policy to which he replied that the policy was introduced in 2018 with an aim to fulfil the information and communication needs of citizens and enterprises by making use of the ubiquitous, resilient, secure, accessible and affordable digital communications infrastructure.
