Unlimited Night Calling Spurs Demand for BSNL's Forgotten Landlines

The nation-wide unlimited night calls from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) landlines since May 1 has spurred interest for its traditional wired telephones.

"In the last two months we have seen growth of 30 percent in registration for new connection compared to April 2015," BSNL GM (Calcutta Telephones) responsible for fixed lines, K C Ghosh said. He said demand for reconnection had also jumped by 20-25 percent during this period. Reconnection lines are existing fixed connections which had been barred outgoing and incoming calls for non-payment of bills.

BSNL had announced unlimited free calling scheme during night hours from its fixed line phones to any operator including mobile phones anywhere in the country from May 1. The scheme is operational between 9pm to 7am and covers all type of connections, BSNL had said at the time.

Ghosh said currently CalTel has 7.5 lakh fixed lines down from some 14 lakh connections it enjoyed in the best of its times during 2003-04.

Speaking about CalTel's financial performance BSNL GM finance (CalTel) S Kujur said there had been a positive trend after a few years of negative growth. "There had been revenue growth of 2.15 percent to Rs. 675 crore in FY15' up from Rs. 661 crore registered in the previous fiscal," he said.

CalTel's bottomline continues to bleed with losses. Kujur said FY15' loss will be around Rs. 360 crore down from Rs. 398 crore loss in 2013-14.

Written with inputs from PTI