The Hindu Business Line : BSNL to invest Rs 1,000 cr in Bengal

Of the proposed corpus, Rs 650 crore would be invested in the West Bengal Telecom Circle while the balance Rs 350 crore would be invested in the Calcutta Telecom District, according to Dr S.K. Chakravarty, Chief General Manager of Calcutta Telephones.

Addressing newspersons here, on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of BSNL, Dr Chakravarty said out of the proposed investment of Rs 1,000 crore, an amount of Rs 600 crore would go towards expansion of the CellOne service while Rs 200 crore would be invested in augmenting IT infrastructure.

Broadband rollout and expansion of the Intelligent Network would each entail a further investment of Rs 100 crore.

According to him, Calcutta Telephones' cellular customer base currently stands at around 3.26 lakh. With augmentation of infrastructure, with a view to addressing issues pertaining to network coverage and congestion, Calcutta Telephones was hopeful of adding one lakh new cellular customers every month for the next six months.

Dr Chakravarty said BSNL has decided to upgrade customer service and facilitate door-to-door delivery of recharge coupons. Towards this end, several BSNL services would be outsourced to private parties shortly. He said along with the Chief General Manager of West Bengal Telecom Circle, Mr S.K. Sharma, he would soon meet the Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, to seek his intervention in sorting out issues pertaining to licence fees imposed by municipal bodies for setting up of base transmitter stations.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Sharma said the West Bengal Telecom Circle of BSNL currently has 3.74 lakh cellular customers. Work on expansion of the network capacity wason. It is expected that the number of BSNL cellular customers in the West Bengal Telecom Circle would go up to touch 12 lakh by end of March 2006.

Mr Sharma said broadband services would be introduced in towns such as Siliguri, Durgapur, Asansol, Haldia and Gangtok. Revenue generation in the West Bengal Telecom Circle in the current fiscal is expected to exceed Rs 1,000 crore. In 2004-05, it was Rs 825 crore.

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