According to a written reply by Dr Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani, minister of state for Communications and minister of state for Rural Development, to Rajya Sabha, BSNL’s revenue has been adversely affected by the delayed rollout of 4G services and intense competition in the mobile market. He noted that BSNL has issued purchase orders for 100,000 4G sites, of which 83,993 have been installed and 74,521 were operational as of March 8, 2025.
Further, responding to a query regarding the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS), the minister mentioned that the government had approved a revival package in 2019 aimed at reducing BSNL’s operational costs through debt restructuring via sovereign guarantee bonds and the implementation of VRS. Following the VRS rollout in 2019, BSNL’s employee expenses were cut by 51 per cent, enabling the company to begin generating operating profit from 2020-21. Currently, as per the minister, there is no active proposal for another VRS under review by the department.
