The other issue is about debt on MTNL books, which is a big concern for BSNL.

Mr. Shrivastava said in order to resolve the issue, the government can provide a soft loan to the new entity.

On the merger, Minister of Communications and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a interview to DD News, “There is an idea on consideration, we have not taken a final call.”

Mr. Prasad said as of now the companies must be revived. “I personally monitor the functioning of both these departments as to how many towers are functioning, the names of chief general managers are there, their mobile numbers are there, I talk to them directly...so monitoring is done at my level also,” Mr. Prasad said.

Mr. Prasad had also met the senior management of BSNL and MTNL recently to discuss the blueprint for reviving the loss-making PSU telecom companies.

The total debt of the two firms has increased to 21,208 crore at the end of June 2014.

The public sector firms are also losing market share. The market share of BSNL has been reduced to 12.3 per cent at the end of May 2014 from 13.27 per cent at end of March 2012 whereas that of MTNL stood at 4.83 per cent at May-end, 2014.

In 2012-13, MTNL recorded a net loss of 5,321.12 crore on annual revenue of 3,428.6 crore.

BSNL losses, as per unaudited results, stood at 8,198 crore for 2012-13.

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