High wage bill pulls BSNL into red for the first time *By fe Bureau* State-owned integrated telecom service provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has earned the dubious distinction of slipping into red for the first time since its inception in October 2000. Chairman and managing director Kuldeep Goyal, who demitted office on Saturday, said BSNL net's loss during 2009-10 stood at Rs 1,823 crore against a net profit of Rs 575 crore during 2008-09.
The company's total revenues declined 10.4% to Rs 32,045.41 crore during the period against the previous fiscal's Rs 35,812 crore. Goyal attributed the first-time losses to the revision in wage bill paid along with arrears of three years, which put a burden of Rs 2,900 crore on the company. Had it not been for this, the company would have posted profit before tax to the tune of Rs 703 crore. FE was the first to highlight the financial decline of BSNL in a series of reports. Goyal, who took charge in August 2007, said not being able to arrest the financial decline of the company was his chief regret though he enumerated a number of steps undertaken to restructure the businesses of the state-owned firm, which in the past focussed mainly on technology and was not market driven. On the targets for the current fiscal, Goyal said a Rs 4,000-crore increase in total revenues would bring the company back in black again. He said the best performance revenue target fixed for the year is at Rs 34,500 crore. In the last two years, BSNL's revenue has been almost stagnant. Goyal said he was hopeful that with increase in broadband revenue and mobile, coupled with value-added services, the company would be able to meet its targets. However, he expressed concern over the payment of Rs 18,500 crore for the spectrum of 3G and broadband wireless access services, saying this would have an impact of Rs 1,500 crore on the interest income alone. While BSNL declined financially, it has achieved a subscriber base of 100 million, which only three companies - Bharti Airtel (BHARTIARTL.BO<http://in.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=BHARTIARTL.BO>: 306.9 -10.05), Reliance Communications (RCOM.NS<http://in.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=RCOM.NS>: 178.7 -3.05) and Vodafone-Essar - have so far achieved. The company is second to Bharti in terms of market share at 19.5%. For the current fiscal it aims to add 20 million subscribers. BSNL, which had to scrap its controversial mega-tender of 93-million lines following a Central Vigilance Commission enquiry, subsequently floated a 5.5 million line order. Goyal said bids have been submitted by three companies Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Network. As reported by FE earlier, the govt has constituted a search committee headed by the cabinet secretary K M Chandrasekhar to look for the next CMD. In the interim period, Gopal Das, director (HR), will be the officiating CMD. http://in.biz.yahoo.com/100731/50/baw1li.html -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""GLOBAL SPECULATORS"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalspeculators?hl=en.
