The contentious case of state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) tender for 60 million GSM lines is still stuck in court. Unless this case is settled, there is no way that BSNL can go ahead and expand. As things stand, it's network capacity is almost full.
That's great news for the private mobile operators who are adding on a huge number of subscribers. While BSNL added just 643,350 subscribers, Bharti Airtel added 1.71 million and Hutchison Essar added 1.03 million. Despite the poor show by BSNL, the country added over 4.64 million GSM subscribers in December.
In the run-up to 250 million subscribers, the Department of Telecommunications had estimated that BSNL would account for half the 250 million subscribers. Today it has just 67 million of the country's 189 million telecom subscribers (both mobile and fixed). It will take a Herculean effort for BSNl to get back into the race and add another 60 million subscribers by the end of the year. So, it remains to be seen what magic BSNL can do in court so that it can get down to the job of providing phone connections.
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