New Delhi: The Union government’s “Digital India” programme aims to provide broadband connectivity to all 20 lakh village panchayats and also build wifi-enabled “smart cities”.
By a very rough estimate, made recently, the Centre would need an 18-lakh to 20-lakh route km OFC network to take broadband all across the country.
The country has a little more than a 9-lakh route km OFC network. Of this, BSNL has around 7 lakh km.
Sources said that according to a rough estimate, in case the government formally buys BSNL’s OFC network, it would need to pay the company Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 8,000 crore, which would be sufficient for the company to neutralise its losses and become robust enough to take up challenges in its core business of fixed and mobile telephony.
The cumulative debt of the two firms had inc-reased to Rs 21,208 crore at the end of June 2014. BSNL’s losses, as per unaudited results for 2012-13, stood at Rs 8,198 crore.
