Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha on Friday said there is no proposal to merge state-run telecomcompanies Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and Ma hanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL). “There is no proposal to merge BSNL and MTNL. We had appointed a consultant to revive MTNL, who has given some recommendations.

BSNL has introduced a new prepaid recharge pack for its customers. After launching the STV 99 and STV 319 prepaid recharges, the state-run telco now offers unlimited calls and 1GB data per day to the prepaid customers at Rs 349 for a validity of 54 days. The new recharge pack by BSNL aims to take on the recent offerings by the incumbents such as Airtel, Jio, Vodafone, and Idea.

In a bid to come to the frontier of the ongoing tariff war, BSNL has introduced a new recharge pack that offers 1GB data to users. The BSNL new STV Rs 118 offers 1GB data to the prepaid customers along with unlimited calls with a validity of 28 days. The new BSNL STV 118 plan will kick in from April 1.

The new BSNL STV 118 plan, however, is only available in Tamil Nadu and Chennai circles, reports TelecomTalk.

The department of telecom (DoT) wants BSNL and MTNL to join hands on not just ramping up the latter’s 3G network in the National Capital Region (NCR) to ramp up service experience for customers, but also wants both the operators to pitch together for enterprise customers on a pan-India basis, utilising each other’s networks across the country. “Several areas of cooperation between the two have been identified under Synergy.

State-owned telecommunications services providers Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited apart from state carrier Air India registered a net loss of more than Rs 116.86 billion in 2016-17, effectively becoming the top 3 loss-making ventures of the government.

The Public Enterprises Survey 2016-17, tabled in parliament on Tuesday by the Department of Public Enterprises, showed that the number of loss-making central enterprises have continued to rise for the third straight year, growing to 82 in the last financial year.

Indian Oil, ONGC and Coal India have emerged as the most profitable PSUs for 2016-17, whereas BSNL, Air India and MTNL incurred the highest losses, according to a government survey tabled in Parliament today.

The Public Enterprises Survey 2016-17, which mapped the performance of central public sector units, showed that the top ten loss-making state-owned firms accounted for a whopping 83.82 per cent of the total losses made by 82 loss-making CPSEs during the year.

BENGALURU: Indian ethical hackers are reaching out to Baptiste Robert, a French cyber researcher, to alert firms of flaws in their online assets as they fear local laws in the country does not give them protection for calling out such vulnerabilities.

Organisations such as Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), the India Post and Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) have fixed those flaws after Baptiste Robert flagged the chinks in their online assets.

State-run telecom firm BSNL plans to roll out 4G services across India by the end of this year with an investment of about Rs 250 billion.

"We are awaiting spectrum allocation from the government in 2100 MHz band to launch 4G VOLTE service. By the end of this year, we will roll out 4G services across country where we operate," BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava told PTI here.

State owned telecom firm BSNL today signed a pact with Finnish telecom gear maker Nokia to roll out 4G services in 10 telecom circles covering western and southern regions in India. “We are really proud to have technology partner like Nokia with whom we are working in South and West Zone of the country, rolling out the latest single RAN Technology, and further moving towards 5G…,” BSNL CMD Anupam Shrivastava said in a statement.

Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha today said there are no plans at present to merge BSNL and MTNL, but asserted that the strategic plan outlined for promoting synergy among state-owned telecom firms will strengthen and benefit both the organisations. “There is no thinking in government on merging the two. But we are taking steps to ensure that collaboration between MTNL (Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd) and BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd) strengthens and benefits both the organisations,” Sinha said.

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