BSNL Gets Jolt from Government, Funding in Budget Reduce By 59 Percent to Rs 33,757 Crore, Reliance Jio

Government telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has suffered a setback from the central government. In this year’s budget, funding for BSNL has declined by about 59 percent. In this financial year, the company has been allocated about Rs 33,758 crore in the budget. In the last few months, BSNL has launched some new services.

In the budget of the previous year, the company was allocated Rs 82,916.20 crore. However, only Rs 72,027.65 crore has been spent out of this amount. In the budget, BSNL has not even received grants-in-ad for payment of Goods and Services Tax (GST). Telecom sector experts say that the company is indicating from low funding that the government has made a lot of investment in it in the last few years. BSNL is expected to improve the financial situation. The government had also increased the investment to help the company’s launch of 4G network.

Recently, BSNL has launched internet TV service for its mobile subscribers. It will get free access to more than 450 live television channels. For this, the company has partnered with Ottplay. With this, the company has introduced a big option of entertainment for its subscribers. This service is being called BSNL Intertainment (BITV). BSNL Chairman, Robert J Ravi said, “Bitv will get an access to entertainment anywhere without cost.”

BSNL’s 5G service can begin this year. In November last year, in the Delhi-NCR region, BSNL gave a tender for more than 1,800 5G sites. Three companies – Tejas Networks, Lekha Wireless and Galore Network have been bid for this tender. Tata Sons has a major stake in Tejas Networks. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) -led consortium also includes Tejas Networks installing about one million 4G sites for BSNL. The company plans to launch 5G network using 900 MHz low-band and 3.5 GHz mid-band spectrum. The company has increased the speed of its 4G network launch. About 65,000 4G sites of the company have been activated. The country has used technology for this network.