The package gives the officers time until October 15 to take a decision on staying back with one of the two public service undertakings.
The 1986-founded company is in the process of appointing a consultant for formulating the future plan of action for its CDMA business.
Of the total proposed allocation, over Rs 1 lakh crore is meant for BSNL and MTNL-related expenses, including Rs 82,916 crore infusion in BSNL for technology upgradation and restructuring at BSNL.
A poser by CPI-M member Sitaram Yechury on whether Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited are deliberately not setting up towers to favour private companies left Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran seething with anger.
Other members of the search panel are secretary (personnel) Shantanu Consul, telecom secretary P J Thomas, IIT Chennai professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IIM Ahmedabad professor Samir Baruha and IISC Bangalore professor N Balakrishnan.
The prime minister's directive comes in the wake of telecom minister A Raja seeking his intervention for early resolution of BSNL's tender controversy.
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the two big state-controlled telecom companies, have written to the government asking that it bear the entire cost of the additional spectrum assigned to the two giants.
If candidates from the private sector are selected, this will be the first time that these telecom PSUs are headed by chiefs from the private sector.
A decision on the merger will take some time as there are procedural problems with MTNL being a listed entity and BSNL non-listed.
Upon discovery of the price for 3G and Broadband Wireless Access spectrum, BSNL and MTNL recently paid Rs 18,500.38 crore (Rs 185 billion) and Rs 11,097.97 crore (Rs 110.97 billion), respectively, to the government.
An apex committee under DoT Secretary R Chandraskehar has been set up to oversee the required policy decisions and institutional framework for an alliance between the two public sector undertakings which have been incurring losses.
Railway Minister Nitish Kumar has said that negotiations are on with the telecom ministry for equity participation of MTNL and BSNL in RailTel Corp to improve telecom services in the Railways.
Millennium Telecom, a joint venture company of two telecom PSUs Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has floated a Rs 1,600-crore (Rs 16-billion) tender to lay a submarine cable between India and South East Asia, the landing station for which would be located in West Bengal. "The cable landing station for this cable would be set up at Digha in West Bengal," the department of telecommunication has informed the state government.
The top three fixed line players Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and Bharti Airtel reported a revenue decline.
While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has approved the access of TV on mobiles, service providers still cannot stream live TV channels on to the handset due to spectrum allocation from the Ministry of Information and Broadcast. However, since the regulations do not allow a direct transmission of TV channels, service providers as well as content providers have started using a technology called Unicast which provides content to end-user on a one-on-one basis.
The proposed merger between two state-run telecom giants -- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited -- might have hit a roadblock, but both the companies plan to synergise their operations across the country.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has got two Mhz of additional spectrum from Department of Telecom to support its growing mobile subscriber base in the country.
The central government has mandated all ministries, public departments and public sector units to use the telecom services of State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL).
The Supreme Court recently quashed a rule that mandated telecom operators to compensate consumers.
Prasad asked private operators to play a role in skill development.
The company is in advanced stages of negotiations with four cellular operators and is expected to announce a couple of deals soon.
In a setback to state-run Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, telecom dispute settlement tribunal TDSAT on Monday refused to grant a stay, through an nterim order, on implementation of the new Access Deficit Charge regime from February 1.
Minister said the government wants to bring them back to profitability.
'The announcement has come too late. This should have been done years ago.'
The government has set a total revenue target of Rs 40,874.5 crore (Rs 408.74 billion) this fiscal from spectrum, including auction amount, one-time spectrum charge and annual regular licence fee.
To revive BSNL and MTNL, DoT is taking various initiatives.
While MTNL on Friday claimed that its website has been restored, some users complained that they were unable to access it.
Ministers in the Narendra Modi government have been busy making presentations on their 100 days of work. But what these presentations do not mention is that decisions by ministers have been few, with plenty of papers and files moving to the Prime Minister's Office, which is increasingly emerging as a centralised clearance point, even for routine and ordinary issues. Though policy paralysis was a term used freely for the United Progressive Alliance regime, questions are now being raised about pending decisions across ministries and whether at least some ministers have turned redundant.
At present MTNL and BSNL do not impose roaming charges for mobile internet services on each others customers.
The decision is likely to bring additional amount of about Rs 1,500 crore or Rs 15 billion (including interest) in the books of MTNL as refund from government for the pension that the PSU paid to its employees.
To revive the two state-run telecom operators, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), the government is likely to waive the one-time fee these telcos need to pay for retaining additional spectrum.
Telecom giant Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd said on Thursday it would levy no incoming call charge on its cellular service, matching a move made last week by the fast-growing sector's biggest player, BSNL.
'Once we are past this electoral season, during which all promises are presented as free lunches, could we bring such non-populist issues into focus?' 'Like fixing the problems of the public sector?' points out T N Ninan.
Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan appealed to people to boycott products from China and also directed officials of his ministry not to procure any Chinese products for day-to-day office use while his ministerial colleague Ramdas Athawale said all restaurants and hotels that sell Chinese food in India should be closed down.
For FY16, MTNL's standalone net loss was over Rs 2,000 crore.
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