A strong push for public telecom infrastructure is reflected in the government’s latest Budget proposal, with a sharp increase in funding for the Telecom Ministry and state-run BSNL.
The government has proposed an outlay of ₹73,990 crore for the Telecom Ministry, marking a rise of about 38% over last year’s revised estimate. The increase is largely driven by higher capital infusion for BSNL.
Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said the allocation will support key projects such as BharatNet, spectrum costs for BSNL, network rollout, and other internal requirements. He said the aim is to strengthen BSNL and support its recovery path.
“We have seen a very healthy increase in allocation from RE (revised estimate) of last year, ₹53,000 crore on telecom. We have grown to ₹73,000 crore. That’s almost 40%,” the Minister said.
Explaining the focus on BSNL, he said the government wants to build the company “from strength to strength.”
“I mentioned to you that our ARPU [average revenue per user] grew by almost 9% from ₹90 to almost ₹99. We would like to touch three digits soon. We have grown revenue across the board across all our three verticals, and now we need this injection of CAPEX along with our internal cash flows so that we can take BSNL on its path of resurgence,” he said.
The Minister added that part of the increased allocation will go toward the rural broadband project BharatNet.
“So there are multiple issues that we’re looking at from Bharatnet where the allocation is ₹1,39,000 crore to spectrum for BSNL to its own internal requirements of CAPEX, whether it be towers or be it media or battery, we are trying to fire on all cylinders,” he said.
He also pointed to higher funding for the Development of the North East Region, which has risen from a revised estimate of ₹4,495 crore to ₹6,800 crore, a jump of nearly 50%.
“The North East has seen a tremendous amount of importance given in this budget from urbanization with 4,000 e-buses to 5 Buddhist circuits across 6 states in the Northeast, and a tremendous amount of preponderance and importance given to the areas of health and education,” the Minister said.
The higher telecom outlay signals the government’s intent to strengthen public sector telecom services while expanding rural connectivity and regional development.
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