NEW DELHI: The much-awaited merger of telecom PSUs, BSNL and MTNL, is likely to take place by July next year as the two companies look at synergizing operations by offering services as a single entity.

At present, BSNL offers services in the whole country, except Delhi and Mumbai. MTNL provides telecom services in these two zones.

“The deadline of June-July 2015 has not been officially commissioned to the organization but the merger is likely to take place in the time frame,” BSNL Director (consumer mobility) Anupam Shrivastava told.

He added there are some matters which need to be sorted out before the merger takes place which include the salary issues and debt on MTNL books.

“Commercially it makes sense for the two companies to merge as it will lower the tax outgo. Currently, BSNL is billing MTNL and vice versa for services for which both are paying taxes. If it becomes one entity, the tax outgo will be less,” Mr. Shrivastava said.

He, however, said before the merger, there are some issues which need to be resolved.

Mr. Shrivastava said the first issue is that MTNL is a listed company and the government has to see how it can be merged with BSNL. One option could be that the government buys back MTNL shares, he said.

“Second thing is the salary difference between the two firms. The salary of MTNL employees is higher than BSNL, so that issue needs to be sorted out,” he added.

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