Editorial- December 2015

On its marvelous turnaround BSNL has launched a high-pitched propaganda in its press releases, on social media campaigns. The telecom minister has even tagged it as one of the achievements of the Modi govt and made it a UPA vs NDA issue. Mr Minister, companies are companies, they are not NDA vs UPA. There are only good or bad companies.

Just as ISRO is a remarkable scientific institution both in UPA and NDA times, BSNL has consistently been bad under both dispensations. And under its present CMD, Anupam Shrivastava corruption and non-performance run through the company as sand through a desert. This corruption is acquiring newer forms and methods.

First, BSNL has used the hyperbole and superlative adjectives to describe its performance. Tremendous growth in mobile connections & arrest of landline connections, it claims. These are camouflages. Our comprehensive analysis of the data and whips issued by the CMD, BSNL to the circle officers to account non-working numbers as connected, reveal how BSNL did this window dressing. Particularly read our ‘Dishonesty Index’ for circle-wise statistics on this subject.

Second, just as the previous government pedaled a zero-loss theory as a defense for the 2G scam, we now have an operating profit theory for BSNL’s non-performance. BSNL has claimed that it has earned a profit of Rs 673 crore.

And what is the truth? In 2003, the DoT gave an advance of Rs 720 crore to BSNL, which it waived off in 2014-15. This is now being claimed as operational profit.

Third, buoyed by injections of loan waivers and tax set offs, BSNL is literally handing over its network to Reliance Jio. BSNL views its network cost as ‘sunk cost’ and therefore has negotiated an Intra-Circle Roaming (ICR) agreement with Reliance Jio with tariff terms that is ruinous to itself and beneficial to Jio. The telecom minister ordered the ICR, and the Trunk Group Utilization Factor and Quality Norms make the ICR Jio exclusive. Jio’s timeline for 4G (BWA) rollout expired in March 2015. The spectrum was to be withdrawn on rollout failures. This ICR ensures that Jio gets to keep its spectrum and grab BSNL’s network.

Fourth, with great fanfare and adspends BSNL launched WiFi hotspots on revenue sharing basis, and there is no revenue even after a year. BharatNet is floundering and seems that it would go kaput just as the NOFN. The SPV that was created for this purpose has fallen by the wayside and there are calls for imminent rescue. Even the Trai chairman has fired broadsides against the manner in which BSNL has messed this project. Then there is the miserable performance on NFS & LWE projects. The list can go on and on & it does.