BSNL & MTNL to invest Rs 1,800 crore

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 19 September 2006, 19:30 IST
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New Delhi: BSNL and MTNL have jointly decided to invest Rs 1,800 crore to lay an undersea cable between India-Singapore. The subsidiary of MTNL, Millennium Telecom Limited, will lay the cable in which BSNL recently acquired 49 percent stake for Rs 10 crore, informed A K Sinha, Chairman and Managing Director of BSNL. "It is a huge network and we plan to complete the project within 18 months. We have commissioned a consultant to prepare the blue print," he added, but refused to give details about the consultant on being asked. Sinha also said that the land route for the project was being considered through Myanmar, but the final decision was pending. The project comes at a time when BSNL is completing its own undersea cable between India and Sri Lanka, which is likely to be commissioned officially soon. Earlier this month, Dayanidhi Maran, Communication and IT Minister had informed that MTNL and BSNL would join hands to lay the submarine cable system connecting India with South East Asia and the Middle East which would further extend to the US and Europe. BSNL also announced an investment of Rs 17,000 crore in the current fiscal to increase GSM, CDMA, broadband services. Sinha said, “ 6,000 crore has been earmarked for GSM expansion. Rs 3,000 crore will be spent for expanding broadband services. And we plan to invest Rs 1,000 crore on the Call Data Record (CDR) based billing system.”

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