The Hindu : New Delhi News : Equipment shortage affects BSNL expansion

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Wednesday, Nov 21, 2007
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New Delhi

Equipment shortage affects BSNL expansion

T. Ramavarman

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Delays in the procurement of equipment seems to have severely affected the mobile expansion plan of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited in Kerala. The delay was mainly due to the controversies regarding awarding of contract for equipment at the national level, but the impact has been severe in the State because of the intense competition from private players.

When contacted by TheHindu here, Chief General Manager (CGM) of the BSNL Kerala Circle K.S. Srinivasan conceded that the its existing mobile connection capacity had been fully utilised in the State. “We will be able to add to our connections significantly only if new equipment is sanctioned from the corporate office in New Delhi,” Mr. Sreenivasan said.

Off target

BSNL General Manager in charge of the mobile section in Kerala, R.R. Mittar said the original plan was to give 1.6 million connections including 1.2 million 2G mobile connections and 0.4 million 3G connections in the current fiscal in the State. But BSNL could give only less than 0.2 million 2G mobile connections so far this year.

“This had raised our total mobile connection in the State to 2.11 million which was far below the target. We have written to the corporate office seeking permit to place emergency purchase orders for one million equipment this year from the existing vendors,” he said.

Highly placed sources in the BSNL said the private competitors were having field day in the State during the last seven to eight months as BSNL was unable to launch any significant drive to enhance the number of connections because of the paucity of equipment. “While we were waiting for equipment the private players were expanding aggressively. Our competitive advantage was the extent of coverage of our network. We will be able to leverage on this only if we become active in the market quickly,” the sources said.

High tele-density

The cost of this delay could be very high in a competitive market like Kerala which had a high tele-density of 42 per 100. This meant that only 58 out of 100 people in Kerala did not have telephone and any player in the telecom sector will have to be aggressive to tap this highly competitive market.

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