BSNL Disinvestment may be delayed

BSNL divestment may be delayed
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CHENNAI: The government’s divestment programme is going full throttle but it’s a slightly different take for BSNL, as its efforts to go public still seems to be in a limbo.

And the public sector telecom company’s chairman only confirms this, saying that BSNL wasn’t on the government’s priority list as far as divestment is concerned.

“There are a large number of companies that the government is planning to list and naturally there will be staggering to see that the market doesn’t have lot of IPOs coming at one time from PSUs. Already, the priorities of the government have been identified and BSNL doesn’t figure in that, so that I don’t think it will happen that soon,” BSNL chairman and managing director Kuldeep Goyal told ET NOW on Monday.

While a resolution has been passed to recommend selling 10% of BSNL’s shares to the public, there’s been no progress after that. The company is still awaiting the government’s decision on the stake sale, after which it will appoint merchant bankers.

Meanwhile, it is trying to iron out differences with its employee unions, to ensure a smooth listing. “Many employees are in favour of it. Union associations are having some resistance but as and when government decides, we will talk to them and see that they appreciate the need for it,” Mr Goyal said.

BSNL is beefing up its third-generation or 3G services, even as private players are preparing to enter the space. The telco was the first off the block to get its 3G services going, but the pace of customer additions was far from a runaway success.

“Initially the uptake was low but now it’s picking up very well. We have five lakh customers now, in the North and East zone and we hope to reach 10 lakh customers by March-end. We are installing a capacity of 50 lakh and we hope to use this to the maximum extent in the coming year,” Mr Goyal said.

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