Govt releases first tranche of Rs 5,000 crore under revival package to BSNL: Report

 NEW DELHI: The Centre has released the first tranche of Rs 5,000 crores from the recently announced Rs 1.64 lakh crores revival package to the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) which will be utilized to clear the telco’s dues to its vendors, CNBC-Awaaz reported on Monday.

The news channel reported that the dues are pending for the last two years which had been causing financial difficulties to the vendors.

In addition to homegrown gear vendors, tower companies are likely to benefit from the first tranche.

ITI Limited (ITI) is the biggest vendor for BSNL, in addition to Tejas Networks, HFCL, VNL, STL and others.

BSNL is expected to start clearing its pending dues within the next 15 days, the report mentioned.

The Union Cabinet in late-July approved the Rs 1.64-lakh crore revival package for the ailing telecom PSU, which includes a cash support of Rs 43,964 crore and non-cash support of Rs 1.20 lakh crore. The revival program is for a four-year period, but most of it will be implemented in the first two years and the cash proponent will be used for spectrum allocation, capital expenditure and viability gap funding.

The government expects BSNL to turn into a financially viable unit with the implementation of this revival plan with BSNL turning profitable in FY 2026-27, according to an official statement.

Under the revival package, BSNL will be administratively allocated spectrum in 900/1800 MHz band administratively at the cost of Rs 44,993 crore through equity infusion. This will allow BSNL to offer 4G services.

BSNL is in process of deploying Atmanirbhar 4G technology stack. To meet the projected capital expenditure for next 4 years, the government will fund capex of Rs 22,471 crore.

Earlier, the government has also approved the merger of Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), the executing agency of BharatNet, with BSNL.