BSNL estimates it needs Rs. 40,000 crore over next five years to become profitable

State-run telecom company BSNL needs to invest an estimated Rs. 40,000 crore in the next five years to become profitable, Chairman and Managing Director R K Upadhyay said Wednesday.

In order to retain its market share, BSNL is required to provide 182 million connections by 2017-18, which would be around 14 percent of 1,300 million projected customer base.

The BSNL by end of March last year had 121.65 million telecom customers, including mobile and landline users.

"We have prepared estimates where we need to invest aggressively on our network. The estimates project investment of Rs. 40,000 crore over a period of next five years," Upadhyay told PTI.

The loss making PSU hopes to register a profit Rs. 35 crore before tax by 2017-18 if it is able to execute the estimates.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has sought financial support from a Group of Ministers, headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

BSNL has been logging losses since 2009-10. The company's profits started declining after 2004-05, when it had made net gains of Rs. 10,183 crore.

The PSU was impacted heavily after it paid 3G and Wireless Broadband spectrum price in 2010 which cumulatively amounted to over Rs. 18,500 crore.

The company expects its total income to grow to above Rs. 44,000 crore by 2017-18 from Rs. 26,396 crore it posted for last fiscal.

In the next five years, BSNL expects to add capacity of additional 40 million lines with focus on Internet business, generate around Rs. 2,500 crore from its land and building assets monetisation and hive off some real estate assets after permission from government.