The Cabinet on Tuesday gave its approval for hiving off mobile tower assets of Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) into a separate company, fully owned by BSNL.
This approval authorizes BSNL to monetize its telecom tower infrastructure with the formation of a separate subsidiary company.
An independent, dedicated tower company of BSNL with a focused approach will lead to increasing of external tenancies and consequentially higher revenue for the new company.
BSNL has more than 66,000 mobile towers. BSNL has a strong presence in rural markets of India. BSNL does not have presence in both Mumbai and Delhi, two key telecom markets.
The total number of mobile towers in India are around 442,000.
An independent, dedicated tower company of BSNL with a focused approach will lead to increasing of external tenancies and consequentially higher revenue for the new company.
“We will complete the hiving off process in two years. Out of total telecom towers in the country, around 15 per cent is with BSNL,” Communications Minister Manoj Sinha said while briefing the media on this Cabinet decision.
He also said the tenancy ratio of BSNL will improve with this hiving off decision.
Private telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, etc. have benefited from their tower business.
