Modi government to invest ₹47,000cr to boost BSNL network
What's the story
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has announced a massive capital expenditure plan of nearly ₹47,000 crore to expand and upgrade the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited's (BSNL) network. The announcement was made today on social media platform X. The move comes after BSNL's record investment of ₹25,000 crore last year for 4G infrastructure development.
Goals
Jyotiraditya Scindia has set aggressive targets for BSNL
Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has set aggressive targets for BSNL, asking it to grow its mobile business by 50% in a year. Scindia also directed each unit of BSNL to grow enterprise business by 25-30% and fixed-line business by 15-20%. To improve the company's financial performance, he has asked BSNL to improve its Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) through better customer satisfaction and subscriber growth. Currently, BSNL's ARPU varies from about ₹40 in some circles to over ₹175 in others.
Strategic move
BSNL launches ₹1 plan to boost ARPU
To boost its ARPU, BSNL has launched a new plan priced at just ₹1. The limited-period Freedom Offer for new customers includes unlimited local and STD voice calls, 2GB of 4G data per day (speed reduced to 40kbps after limit), and 100 SMS messages per day. The offer is valid until August 31, 2025, and is only available through BSNL retailers and Common Service Centers (CSCs).