The Union Cabinet in its meeting on Friday approved an additional Rs 6,000 crore for the rollout of BSNL 4G services, sources said.
The company is targeting to complete the rollout of 4G services by mid of this year. BSNL issued a purchase order of Rs 13,000 crore out of Rs 19,000 crore to TCS-led consortium for rolling out 4G using indigenous stack.
The balance Rs 6,000 crore will now be utilised towards capex for the rollout. BSNL has installed over 50,000 4G sites across the country so far.
Notably, for FY26, the government has more than halved the outlay for BSNL to Rs 33,575.58 crore from Rs 72,027.65 crore in FY25.
According to analysts, BSNL’s 4G journey will be an uphill one because it is late to the game.
Further, private telcos have sharpened focus on rural areas on 4G as well as launched 5G services.
As of November end, BSNL’s subscribers stood at 92.05 million.
The company lately gained subscribers from tariff hikes by private telecom operators. However, it started losing customers again, owing to poor quality of 4G services.
Since 2019, the government has given three revival packages to BSNL and MTNL worth Rs 3.2 lakh crore.
In the April-September period, BSNL has marginally narrowed its net loss to Rs 2,785 crore from Rs 2,951 crore in the year-ago period, according to its financial statements. Revenue from operations grew 10.4% year-on-year (y-o-y) to Rs 9,235 crore during the six months ended September on the back of surge in revenue from all its business segments — consumer mobility, enterprise business and consumer fixed access verticals.
