Chairman's Statement

On behalf of the Board of Directors and Management, I welcome you all to the 22nd Annual General Meeting of your Company. The telecom sector faced the continued hyper competition added with the challenges thrown by Covid-19 pandemic and heavily discounted unlimited bundled plans offered by the competitors. The operational environment continues to remain challenging. Borrowing and Finance cost of your Company has gone up. However total revenue of your Company has increased by about 2.18% in current financial year from Rs. 18646 Crores to Rs. 19052 Crores.

Your Company incurred a loss of Rs 6981.62 Crores [Previous year Rs. 7441.12 Crores. Net loss of your compnay has decreased by 6.18 % during the year 2021-22, and Your Company is EBITDA positive during this Financial Year to Rs. 944 Crores. The telecom industry will face new opportunities and challenges presented by a dynamic regulatory, technological, and competitive environment.

To grab the opportunities present in the telecom Industry and keeping in faith on the management and its staff, Union Cabinet in July 27, 2022, approved revival measures having focus on infusing fresh capital for upgrading BSNL services, allocating spectrum, de-stressing its balance sheet, and augmenting its fibre network by merging Bharat Broadband Nigam Limited (BBNL) with BSNL. The measures are as follows:

i)  Allotment of Spectrum at the cost of Rs 44,993 crore through equity infusion.
ii) Financial support by equity infusion of Rs 22,471 crore for capex.
iii) The Viability Gap Funding of Rs 13,789 crore, for rural operations for the period 2014-15 to 2019-20.
iv) Authorised Capital to be increased to Rs 1,50,000 crore to accommodate the infusion of capital.
v) Sovereign Guarantee will be provided to BSNL to raise long term bonds for an amount of Rs 22,828 crore for debt restructuring over three years period.
vi) AGR dues of BSNL will be settled by conversion into equity. The Funds will be provided by the Government to settle the GST dues thereupon.
vii) 9% Non-cumulative Preference Share of Rs 7,500 crore will be re-issued to the Government.

The management of the Company already working on implementation of revival measures and your Company has also taken up renting of surplus built-up space and monetization of assets valuing below Rs.100 cr. each, and is actively pursuing the same and your company has earned a revenue of Rs.239.20 cr through renting of built-up space and monetization of land and building assets.

Presently your company has launched 4G services at limited scale by utilizing the existing available spectrum which is also being used for providing 3G services. In order to promote domestic technologies and make in India initiative of Government of India for Telecom Sector and full scale 4G services launch BSNL has followed proof of concept to implement the government policy mandate for 4G services launch, M/s TCS, C-DoT and Tejas combined has developed equipment and provisionally successfully conducted tests for deployability of 4G equipment’s with certain punch points. BSNL has already placed order for 12000 sites for early deployment.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for continued support and guidance received from the Government of India, Ministry of Communications, Department of Telecommunications and other Ministries and Departments of the Government of India, Regulatory Authorities, Local Bodies and the State Governments. The unwavering support of the Ministry of Communications and other Ministries of the Government of India has been the greatest strength of your Company.

The trust and confidence of our stakeholders, our valued shareholders, have been the inspiration in this journey.

Last but not the least, I extend my gratitude to the various Regulatory authorities, Company’s valued customers, suppliers, vendors, bankers and investors for their consistent co-operation and trust. Your support is highly valued and your Company’s success is an indication of the faith you have always bestowed upon us and ‘Team BSNL’, for their immense contribution in our forward march.