State-owned telecom firm BSNL is looking to mop up Rs 1,000 crore by sharing infrastructure — mostly towers — with other telecom firms.
“The master sharing agreement (MSA) for sharing of BSNL towers is in the final stages with some telecom operators and likely to be finalised very soon,” a release said. The company has more than 40,000 towers spread across the country.
A Mumbai-based telecom analyst, requesting anonymity, termed the move as a positive one but added, “Infrastructure sharing is an increasing
trend amongst telcos. This helps increase tower efficiency as tenancy increases. But in
BSNL’s case, we have to see how it materialises in the long term, due to its government-controlled nature of operation.”
Earlier this month, a report by the Comptroller & Auditor General tabled in Parliament rapped the firm’s mode of operation. It said BSNL failed to retire a government loan of Rs 7,500 crore despite having cash reserves of Rs 18,829 crore as on March 2005, leading to an excess expenditure of Rs 1,089 crore on interest payment during 2005-07.
In the Budget speech, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said BSNL’s financial resources have reduced to Rs 14,015 crore from Rs 17,891 crore. The company’s internal resources amount to Rs 7,106 crore as compared to Rs 8,722 crore last year. Resources from bonds and debentures are now Rs 6,909 crore as compared to Rs 9,169 crore last year.
Meanwhile, net profit reduced by as much as one-fifth to Rs 575 crore from Rs 3,000 crore in FY08. BSNL reasoned the drop in profit was largely due to increased employee cost as a result of implementation of recommendations of the sixth pay commission. Revenue, on the other hand, increased 10.6% to Rs 3,581 crore during the fiscal.
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