"We have planned to invest between Rs 75,000 to 78,000 crore (Rs 750 billion to Rs 780 billion) over next three years. We have targeted to take our subscriber base to 125 million (12.5 crore) during this period taking mobile, basic and broadband services together," A K Sinha, chief managing director, BSNL said..
The company is also likely to register a net profit of about Rs 7,000 crore (Rs 70 billion) for 2004-05, up from Rs 5,972 crore (Rs 59.72 billion) in 2003-04, Sinha said adding that profitability was hit due to cut in access deficit charge.
The gross sales are likely to be Rs 37,000 crore (Rs 370 billion) during the last year.
The company had earlier reported that new ADC regime will cause a loss of Rs 1,254 crore (Rs 12.54 billion) annually and accordingly BSNL's net profit would be less by about Rs 208 crore (Rs 2.08 billion) during 2004-05 as the new regime came into effect from February this year.
Asked about the source of funding of the Rs 78,000 crore investment programme, Sinha said BSNL would meet most of its requirements from internal accruals.
On the issue of proposed merger between MTNL and BSNL, Sinha favoured synergy between the two PSUs but said that government was working on various options given by the financial consultants and an appropriate decision would be taken by the department of telecom soon.
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