MTNL presents Rs 35.43 cr to Maran

Mumbai, Oct 26: Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) today presented a cheque for Rs.35.43 crores towards the balance dividend for the financial year 2005-06 to the Minister of Communications and IT, Thiru Dayanidhi Maran.

According to a release issued here, MTNL in its 20th Annual General Meeting(AGM) held last month, had approved payment of final dividend at 40 per cent(Rs.4/- per share) including 30 per cent interim dividend already paid in the month of February, 2006 on the paid up equity capital of Rs.630 crores for the financial year 2005-06.

In addition to that the total dividend payout for year 2005-06 is Rs.252 crores out of which Rs.189 crores has already been paid as interim dividend. Out of this, Rs.141.75 crores is payable to the Government of India towards its shareholding in the Company, the release said.

Mr Maran on the occasion said, '' I congratulate MTNL for the good work they have done and its very evident that they are moving at the right direction. MTNL has been playing a pivotal role in provocating the market dynamics by reducing tariffs and providing greater consumer benefit''.

Mr R S P Sinha, CMD, MTNL said '' Its gives me immense pleasure to say that despite roadblocks MTNL has come out with a good dividend and in fact, if analyzed carefully, ignoring the other expenses incurred in this financial year, MTNL's net profit goes up tremendously.'' As a result of MTNL' all out effort to increase its customer base both in Delhi&Mumbai, a significant growth has been witnessed in customer base touching a figure of 6.13 million. TRAI recently in a poll judged MTNL as the best Telecom provider with the lowest network congestion.After becoming the first company in Asia to introduce ADSL 2+ technology for Broadband, MTNL has recently launched cutting edge IPTV and is the pioneer in the country.

Set-up by the Union government in April, 1986, the role of MTNL is to upgrade the quality of telecom services, expand the telecom network, introduce new services and to raise revenue for telecom development needs of India's key metros - Delhi, the political capital and Mumbai, the business capital of India.

In the past 19 years, the company has taken rapid strides to emerge as India's leading and one of Asia's largest telecom operating companies. Besides having a strong financial base, MTNL has achieved a customer base of over 5 million, added the release.

UNI