Telecom minister wants BSNL to boost market share

30 September 2008

Communications and IT minister A. Raja today asked public sector BSNL to give top priority to the growth of cellular and broadband services and asked BSNL to speed up the roll out of 3G and WI-MAX services based on the spectrum already allocated to it by the government.

He called upon BSNL to ensure immediate rollout of 3G and WI-MAX services based on the spectrum already allocated to it by the government.

Speaking at the 15th heads of circles conference of BSNL in New Delhi, Raja expressed worries over the dwindling market share of BSNL in the mobile telecom segment. He asked BSNL officials to workout a strategy to boost BSNL's market position, expressing confidence that the public sector telco would continue to contribute more than 50 per cent in achieving a national target of 20 million broadband connections by 2010.

The minister wanted the telecom giant to pay urgent attention to good quality of service, customer care and responsiveness to the needs of customers to beat the fresh challenges of competition arising out of the impending launch of number portability and  suggested beefing customer grievances redressal.

Raja also suggested upgrading the skills of the technical and managerial staff and providing them adequately training.

The minister asked for more intelligent financial management for better profit margins, keeping down the costs, efficient utilisation of capital assets, increasing revenue through sharing of infrastructure and reduction of outstanding dues.