State-owned telecom firm BSNL on Saturday reported a net loss of Rs 1,823 crore for 2009-10 mainly due to payment of wage arrears for the past three years, as against Rs 575 crore net profit in the previous year. The company’s total revenues also plunged by over 10 per cent during the year at Rs 32,045 crore (both from services and other income), compared to Rs 35,812 crore in 2008-09, BSNL CMD Kuldeep Goyal said.
This is the first-ever loss registered by the PSU since its inception in October 2000, when it was spun off the Department of Telecom (DoT). The losses, however, coincided with a distinction of BSNL achieving mobile subscriber base of 100 million. Goyal, meanwhile, is retiring today after a stint of 3-year as CMD of BSNL.
“We have implemented the wage revision this year and paid arrears for the last three years and the outgo was Rs 2,900 crore,” Goyal said. Had the wage revision expenditure not been there, the company would have recorded a profit before tax of Rs 703 crore, he added.
On the targets for the current financial year, Goyal said an increase of Rs 4,000 crore revenue would bring BSNL back into profit. He, however, expressed concern over the payment of Rs 18,500 crore for the spectrum of 3G and Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) services, saying it would have an impact of Rs 1,500 crore in interest income alone.
On the company’s market share, Goyal said that in revenue terms it was 19.5 per cent, second after Bharti Airtel. BSNL has also set an ambitious target of adding 20 million new mobile subscribers in the current financial year.
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