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The Department of Telecommunications has sought approval from the government to expand the base-station capacity of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) by nearly a fourth, according to sources aware of the development.
The addition, of 23,000 sites and to be done next financial year, will take the number of base stations to 123,000.
Additional funding for this will be required, a source added.
“The effective way for BSNL to compete with private telcos is to expand its coverage. We now have about 100,000 sites while private carriers have over 350,000,” the person said.
A second source said: “While BSNL has turned round and is generating revenue, including revenue from land monetisation, to move quicker a Cabinet nod will be needed.”
As of October 31, BSNL had 97,068 4G base station sites of the planned 100,000 for offering 4G and 5G service. And of the installed ones, 93,511 sites were live, Minister of State for Communications and Rural Development Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar, told the Lok Sabha earlier this month.
Additional funding is likely to be part of the ₹47,000 crore capital expenditure the government has outlined for next financial year. This is aimed at raising coverage from 4G to 5G.
“BSNL has done its highest ever capex of ₹25,000 crore last year,” the Department of Telecom had said, citing Minister of Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia.
In August, the minister of state had said the government had approved ₹6,982 crore as additional capex for BSNL in 2025.
The approval was in addition to the capex support of ₹3.22 trillion the government has provided in several tranches since 2019, including ₹1.64 trillion in 2022 and an allotment of 4G and 5G spectrum worth ₹89,000 crore in 2023.
The telecom firm lags behind industry peers such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea on the number of subscribers, profitability, and revenue. Boosting BSNL’s network capacity will also help it achieve growth targets set by the government. The targets are monitored each month.
The telco has to increase its mobile-service business by 50 per cent over next financial year, raising the enterprise business 25-30 per cent and fixed-line business 15-20 per cent.
Scindia has asked BSNL to boost its average revenue per user (Arpu), a metric on quarterly performance.
BSNL’s Arpu varies, ranging from around ₹40 in some circles to more than ₹175 in others.
The company in 2024 posted a net profit of ₹262 crore in July-September and ₹280 crore in October-December — its first back-to-back profitable quarters in 18 years.
