Minister Devusinh Chauhan, Telecom Information, ET Telecom

The federal government doesn’t have plans to privatise state-owned Mahanagar Phone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), Parliament was knowledgeable on Friday. MTNL has been incurring losses since 2016-17, and its loss stood at Rs 2,617 crore for the yr 2021-22, Minster of State for Communications Devusinh Chauhan stated in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

“There is no such thing as a plan to privatise MTNL,” the minister stated.

The federal government authorised the revival plan for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Restricted (BSNL) and MTNL in October 2019 wherein an in-principle nod for the merger of the 2 state-owned telecom firms was granted.

Because of the excessive debt of MTNL and the hostile monetary place of BSNL, the federal government, in December 2020, deferred the merger until MTNL’s debt place improves.

To a different query, the minister famous that the Cupboard, in its assembly held on June 14, 2022, had reserved the spectrum for BSNL for offering 5G providers.

“Testing of Indian make 4G gear, beneath Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, is already at advance stage and the supply of the gear will start after completion of the testing,” Chauhan stated.

Individuals will begin getting benefitted as soon as this gear is deployed and commissioned, he noticed.

Replying to a different query, the minister stated the full licence charge (LF) and Spectrum Utilization Costs (SUC) dues as much as FY2018-19 for main telecom service suppliers stood at about Rs 1,62,654.4 crore.

As per the data made obtainable, the cumulative dues of telecom service suppliers, which have opted for a moratorium scheme, add as much as Rs 1,02,325 crore.

Of this, Bharti Group’s LF and SUC dues as much as the monetary yr 2018-19 got here to about Rs 29,856 crore, whereas that of Vodafone Thought was Rs 59,236.8 crore.

The LF and SUC dues of Reliance Jio Infocomm – which has not opted for the moratorium scheme – have been at Rs 406.4 crore.

The evaluation of such dues is an ongoing course of and topic to revision primarily based on illustration, audits and litigation.

“For addressing the monetary stress within the sector, the federal government has given an possibility of moratorium of as much as 4 years on LF and SUC dues assessed as much as FY 2018-19, to be paid by the licensees in yearly instalments by 31.03.2031,” the minister stated.