BSNL to recover over Rs 3,600 cr from subscribers

NEW DELHI: State-owned telecom giant BSNL has to recover a whopping Rs 3,665.51 crore mainly from the private subscribers, an amount which equals to approximately half of the company's profit after tax for 2006-07 that is Rs 7,805.87 crore.
    
This was revealed by an audit report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India presented in Parliament.
    
The report pointed out that the major culprits cutting such huge holes in the kitty of BSNL were private subscribers whose outstanding accounted for a huge 95.35 per cent while the Central and state subscribers together accounted for just 4.65 per cent of the total outstanding for 2006-07.
    
The amount outstanding against private subscribers has been continuously increasing over the past few years and last year alone, the amount outstanding against them was a huge Rs 239.69 crore, the report said.
    
Of the total Rs 3,665.51 crore outstanding against various categories of telephone subscribers at the end of June 2007, the share of private subscribers constituted Rs 3,495.21 crore.
    
This accounts for almost half of the profit of Rs 7,805.87 crore earned by the company in the fiscal 2006-07.
    
The decrease in profit has been due to fall in income from services, the report added.
    
While the share of the Central government was a minuscule one per cent and that of state government amounted to mere 3.65 per cent.