BSNL land book value understated: PAC

Chiding BSNL for its inability to frame a sound land management policy for over a decade, a Parliamentary panel has said that the book value of the PSU telecom major's huge land holding has remained "understated".
Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has expressed its displeasure over "inability" of BSNL for not framing a land management policy for a long period -- that is till May 2013, despite having inherited huge tracts of land from Department of Telecom in 2000.
The Committee found that the state-run company inherited 12,194 plots of land, measuring 406.31 lakh sqm with book value of Rs 3,103 crore located at various places, from the DoT, as per the PAC report tabled in Parliament.

The total book value of BSNL's land holding, as per Management Information System (MIS), was Rs 3,483.44 crore. This also included Rs 380.41 crore book value assigned to plots that BSNL acquired/leased after its formation.
However, as per the audited accounts of the company, the value of such land was shown only as Rs 1,130.81 crore, the report said.
When compared to MIS data, the book value of the land was understated in the annual report 2011-12 of the company to the extent of Rs 2,352.6 crore, it added.
"The Committee noted with serious concern that in absence of sound land management policy, BSNL have failed miserably to get its huge tract of land mutated, even after a long period of more than one and a half decade. BSNL utterly failed to protect its land at different parts of the country from encroachment," the report said.

Asking the Ministry of Communications to take urgent steps to formulate a "sound" land management policy to "protect and preserve" its invaluable large tracts of land at the earliest, PAC recommended that every possible step should be taken for mutation of land so as to reconcile the book value of the property.