Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) was trying to monetise its non-core assets and was assessing that it could potentially raise Rs 470 crore through that. But reportedly, the move from the telco has gone unsuccessful. The state-run telco was selling its land assets on multiple locations, but it hasn’t seen much positive response for the same. According to a Business Standard report, an official from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) said, initially, a lot of interest in such assets was expressed, but now, the specific issues and problems are being determined to overcome the challenges of sale of these assets.
BSNL Needs Money Through These Assets for 4G Capex and More
The state-run telco needs money from the sale of these assets so that it can meet the 4G capex expectations. In November 2021, DIPAM had listed six properties of BSNL and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) for sale which included land parcels of BSNL along with land and residential flats owned by MTNL in Mumbai. From these six properties, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) was expecting a revenue of Rs 3,000 crore. However, it wasn’t anything like that since only a few MTNL flats got a positive response. The land parcels in Hyderabad and Rajpura estimated at Rs 400 crore and Rs 70 crore did not get any response. The bidding for all the unsold assets will happen again. The DoT will also be infusing around Rs 45,000 crore in the coming financial year into BSNL which will help with the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) along with purchasing 4G spectrum. The money would also include a grant-in-aid for tax which will be put on the purchase of 4G spectrum. BSNL is working with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) along with the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) for rolling out homegrown 4G. For that, the telco will have to make a ton of investments and increase capex on networks. Thus, the monetary help from the government is going to make a big difference.
