Rs 145 cr loss due to illegal routing of international calls

New Delhi, Apr 28 (UNI) The Government suffered a Rs 145 crore-loss during the last three fiscals due to illegal routing of international calls, the Lok Cabha was informed today.

In 2007-08, 26 set ups were detected which were used for illegal routing leading to a loss of Rs 18.26 crore to the Government, Minister of State for Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia said in a written reply.

X X X BSNL-MTNL MERGER: The restructuring of BSNL and MTNL has been put on hold for the time being.

This has been done as the enabling conditions for restructuring, as suggested by a consortium of consultants, are not good enough to lead to a successful merger and also because of the complexity of issues involved, Mr Scindia said.

X X X BSNL IPO: There are no active proposals to bring an IPO for BSNL at present, the Minister said.

X X X NEW LINES: BSNL plans to add 33.3 million lines in the next one year, he said.

X X X BROaDBAND: About 2,350 blocks covering more than 20,000 villages have been provided with broadband connectivity.

The minimum speed of broadband is 256 Kbps which can be increased up to 8 Mbps depending upon the distance of the customer from the serving exchange and the condition of cable pair available, Mr Scindia said.

X X X POST OFFICES: As many as 500 extra departmental branch post offices and 375 departmental sub post offices would be opened during 2008-09, the Minister said.

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