Government Urges BSNL to Look at Options Including Closure of Services as Losses Mount

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the government led telecom operator has been advised to look at all options which it can pursue regarding the PSU’s future. The telecom operator has been told to explore options like disinvestment, revival or even closure from the authorities after its long stint of making massive losses. Notably, BSNL has become the biggest loss-making PSU for the government. To look at the figures and to measure the scale at which it is making losses, it is worth noting that in the 2015-16 and 2016-17, BSNL’s losses stood at Rs 4,859 crore and Rs 4,786 crore respectively. Whereas, in the 2017-18 FY, BSNL’s losses widened to Rs 7,992 crore. This figure translates to about 25% of the total PSU losses that the government is making from all its companies.

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Telco Secy Asks BSNL to Present Analysis

The government led telecom operator was given the direction during a meeting with the telecom secretary, Aruna Sundararajan. BSNL, Chairman and Managing Director, Anupam Shrivastava presented the company financials and a projection about the company’s health to the telecom secretary. BSNL CMD also spoke about the company’s accumulated losses since the entry of Reliance Jio into the market and touched topics like Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) and early retirement plans for employees.

Among all the options which were proposed to BSNL, the most interesting of all was the possibility of closure. The company was asked to present an analysis of what would happen if the business was shut down. The telecom secretary asked BSNL to submit “comparative analysis of all options available with the government, i.e. strategic disinvestment of BSNL, closure or revival with financial support.”