BSNL to take a 20 per cent hit in profits

New Delhi, Apr 10 (UNI) Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) today said its profits had gone down 20 per cent at Rs 8,000 crores in 2005-06 as compared to Rs 10,000 crores in the previous year, mainly attributed to lower ADC levy from private operators.

Chairman and Managing Director, BSNL, Anil Kumr Sinha said the Access Deficit Charge (ADC) was lower by about Rs 2,000 crores and the reduction in the reimbursement of license fee was about Rs 1,600 crores in 2005-06 as compared to the last fiscal.

Briefing the media based on estimates, Mr Sinha said the gross income of the company had gone up by 9 per cent to Rs 39,500 crore from over Rs 36,000 crore in the previous fiscal.

The largest telecom service provider has registered a growth of 55.64 per cent in adding Direct Exchange Line (DELs) to its network during the financial year 2005-06 as compared to last financial year 2004-05.

Mr Sinha said as against the target of 5,800 village public telephones (VPTs), the PSU installed 16,333 VPTs placing 5.35 lakh villages in the telephone network of India.

Mr Sinha said BSNL also added 82.27 lakh Direct Exchange Lines in 2005-06. The company, he said surpassed its annual target of 75 lakh and added 82.27 lakh lines during the year 2005-06. The net addition of DELs in 2004-05 was 52.86 lakhs. The gross additions were 120 lakh DELs in 2005-06 as against 87.03 lakhs in 2004-05.

The total number of DELs in BSNL network stood at a whopping 5.51 crores on MArch 31, 2006 as compared to 4.69 crores in the previous year.

LAndlines grew to 5.12 lakh while BSNL's mobile phones went up to 77.15 lakh.

The wait list of 16.20 lakh in 2004-05 has been reduced to 12.69 lakh as on March 31, 2006. It has added 7.23 lakh internet connections and 5.52 lakh broadband connections. The total number of internet subscribers stood at 2.50 million and the number of broadband users stood at 5.96 lakh on March 31, 2006.

The company continued to add more Opical Fibre Cables (OFC) to its network.

As against the target of 15,000 route kilo meters, the company added 18,256 kilometers of OFC.

BSNL also added 820 kilo circuits of trunk automatic exchanges (TAX) as against the target of 620 kilo circuits. The total number of TAX facility stood at 6647 Kilo Circuits at the end of the financial year, Mr Sinha said.

UNI RT PV GC1628