BSNL plans thrust on rural mkts in M'shtra

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd's (BSNL) Maharashtra circle plans to give a major thrust to its rural business aiming to have a presence in 44,000 villages this fiscal.

"We aim to be in all villages of Maharashtra and are confident of high growth from rural areas," BSNL Maharashtra telecom circle chief general manager Kuldeep Goyal said.

BSNL also plans to offer 14 lakh mobile connections and 4.8 lakh broadband connections besides introducing multi-play services in the state this fiscal, he told reporters here.

According to him, BSNL had increased its mobile customer base from 11 lakh to 22 lakh as on March 31 this year. It has also given 38,975 broadband connections and added 68,874 landline connections.

BSNL's Maharashtra circle clocked Rs 3,600 crore in earnings last year with a profit of Rs 760 crore and its earnings and profit guidance for this year is about the same.

Asked why he expected growth to remain the same, Goyal said it was mainly because of competition and reduction in tariffs. However, despite this, BSNL maintained the same revenues, he pointed out. BSNL has also added 1.42 lakh WLL connections taking its total WLL subscriber base to 3.7 lakh.