A heated trade happened in Parliament on Wednesday between Shiv Sena UBT MP Arvind Sawant and BJP’s Minister of Communications, Jyotiraditya Scindia, over the standing of BSNL subscribers in India.
Scindia responded in Marathi to a query posed by Pratibha Dhanorkar, a Congress MP from Maharashtra, concerning BSNL’s present state. “I wish to ask the honourable MP, when it was their authorities, what was the state of affairs of BSNL in India? In 2019, throughout PM Modi’s governance, we gave Rs 3,35,000 crore to BSNL. The Rs 9,000 crore loss-making PSU is now making Rs 2,000 crore revenue,” Scindia stated.
On BSNL subscribers, he stated, “From April to November 2024, BSNL now has 90.7 lakh subscribers, up from 8.80 lakh beforehand.”
Scindia supplied an replace on BSNL’s 4G community, saying that it could possibly be accomplished by Might subsequent yr. “We now have supplied 2,500 BTS for the 4G community. Within the monsoon session of Parliament in July 2024, the communications ministry knowledgeable that the rollout of BSNL’s 4G providers could take one other yr. The community is now anticipated to be accomplished by Might 2025,” Scindia defined. “To this point, BSNL has activated only one,000 websites, with an formidable goal of 100,000 websites throughout the nation,” he added.
The controversy started when Sawant challenged the MPs from the NDA about their alternative of telecom suppliers. “The MTNL has been serving Mumbai-Delhi for many years, however I do know to ask the honourable minister, since 2014, what number of MPs are utilizing a BSNL connection? Everybody has Jio right here,” Sawant stated, including that “lawmakers solely use BSNL SIM playing cards as a result of it’s free.”
Om Birla, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, intervened, stating, “Do not problem this, in Parliament places of work we use solely BSNL and MTNL providers.”
Scindia additionally talked about the workforce, stating, “At present, there are 55,000 workers at BSNL, and we’re chargeable for them.”
The federal government’s revival package deal for BSNL goes past the 2019 package deal. In 2022, the cupboard permitted an extra Rs 1.64 lakh crore package deal to strengthen BSNL’s place within the aggressive Indian telecom market.
