Govt no to BSNL entry into Mumbai, Delhi

The government has turned down Bharat Sanchar Nigam's Limited's proposal to offer services in Mumbai and Delhi metros, saying guidelines do not permit it.

The government has informed the country's largest telecom company BSNL that as per the existing guidelines for issue of unified access services licence, BSNL can't be granted the licence for Mumbai and Delhi, Minister of State for Telecom and IT Shakeel Ahmad said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

MTNL operates in these two metros. BSNL had applied for grant UASL licence for operating fixed and mobilem service in Delhi and Mumbai.

BSNL still rules the roost when it comes to marketshare in the overall telecom services market with a 28.06 per cent, followed by Bharti Airtel at 20.06 per cent and Reliance at 14.43 per cent. Vodafone Essar, which has only cellular mobile services, has 13.94 per cent marketshare as on July, 2007.

Tatas have 8.03 per cent marketshare and Idea Cellular, an AV Birla group company, has 7.31 per cent, he said.

Replying to a query, the Minister said MTNL's total outstanding arrears in Delhi and Mumbai has been reduced by 5.7 per cent over the last one year up to June 30. While for Delhi, the due from customers was Rs 786 crore, for Mumbai it was Rs 443 crore (Rs 4.43 billion).

MTNL, a navratna company, has also proposed to build private building construction companies at its vacant land in Delhi and Noida for which it has moved into a joint development partnership with IDEB on a build, operate and transfer basis for a plot in Noida. The time limit for completion of the plot is December 2008 and the expected expenditure and profit is yet to be firmed up, Ahmad said.