BSNL Revenue Hit by 4G Delay, Competition: MoS Telecom

New Delhi, Mar 27 (PTI) Revenue of BSNL has been impacted due to delay in the rollout of 4G services as well as stiff competition in the mobile segment, Parliament was informed on Thursday.

In a written reply to Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for telecom, Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar said BSNL has awarded purchase orders for one lakh 4G sites out of which 83,993 sites have been installed and 74,521 are on air as on March 8.

"The revenue of BSNL is impacted due to delay in rollout of 4G services as well as stiff competition in the mobile segment," the minister said.

In response to a question on voluntary retirement scheme, Sekhar said the government approved the first revival package in 2019 to reduce the operating cost of BSNL by debt restructuring through sovereign guarantee bonds as well as VRS.

"After implementation of VRS in 2019, the employee cost of BSNL got reduced by 51 per cent. As a result of the above, BSNL started earning operating profit from 2020-21. At present, no proposal for VRS in BSNL is under consideration in the department," the minister said.