Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), a state-run Indian telecom operator, has delayed its 4G rollout by a few years. The newly appointed telecom minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Thursday that the telecom department is in the process of forming a performance monitoring unit (PMU) to track the 4G rollout progress of BSNL.
Scindia said that BSNL, TCS, C-DoT, and Tejas along with more players will form a PMU. There will be daily targets that Scindia has mandated for them to achieve. This will be monitored directly by the telecom secretary and Scindia himself, said a BusinessStandard report. Owing to delays, BSNL has been losing customers to private telecom operators including Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi).
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The truth is, at a time when two private telecom operators are completing 5G coverage in the country, one is yet to even start rolling out 4G aggressively. BSNL has delayed the 4G rollout, and it has mostly happened due to the government mandate of using homegrown technology. While it is a brave initiative and one that puts India at the forefront of innovation and growth in the long run, there's no denying that it also hurts BSNL majorly in the short term.
The TCS-led consortium, which includes C-DoT and Tejas Networks received a Rs 24,500 crore project from BSNL last year after it was cleared by the telco's board and later a group of ministers. The consortium will provide equipment and help in the deployment of 4G in over 1 lakh sites for BSNL. Further, TCS will also maintain the BSNL networks for 10 years.
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Scindia was speaking on the sidelines of the IMC (India Mobile Congress) 2024 launch and theme reveal event on Thursday. The event is set to take place at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, from October 15, 2024.
