Union Minister for IT and Telecom Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday that state-run BSNL will use about Rs 53,000 crore in upgrading its network to 4G and 5G this year, as well as revamping the landline network across the country.
The government has announced a capital infusion of Rs 52,937 crore in BSNL during the next fiscal starting April 1, 2023.
Speaking about the budget for 2023–2024, the minister stated that most of BSNL’s balance sheet problems have already been addressed and that the capital infusion is part of the Rs. 1.64 lakh crore revival plan announced last year.
BSNL has raised new debt using the sovereign guarantees which were announced in the package. Now, the physical installation of new towers, upgradation from 2G, 3G to 4G and 5G and a major revamp in the landline systems of the MTNL and BSNL network will be taken up in this year using the capital allocation of Rs 53,000 crore, which has been made for BSNL,” Vaishnaw said.
1.23 lakh crore has been allotted by the government for postal and telecom projects. The total budget includes Rs. 25,814 crore for postal projects and Rs. 97,579.05 crore for the Department of Telecom. The government has set aside Rs 2,158 crore for an optical fibre cable-based network for the defence services and Rs 715.8 crore for telecom projects in the north-eastern states.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her speech announced setting up of 100 labs for developing applications using 5G services in engineering institutions.
The government has raised non-tax revenue collection estimates from the telecom sector by 30 per cent to Rs 89,469.17 crore in the receipt budget for 2023-24.
The government has revised the revenue estimate to Rs 68,784 crore for the current fiscal from the earlier projection of Rs 52,806 crore in the previous budget. The actual revenue of the government in 2021–22 was Rs 85,828 crore.
The non-tax revenue from the communication sector mainly relates to licencing fees from telecom operators and receipts on account of spectrum usage charges.
