April 14: The telecom secretary, Mr R. Chandra-shekhar, said that a decision on BSNL and MTNL merger will take time as there are procedural problems with MTNL being a listed entity and BSNL non-listed. “At this stage, this is not a decision but there are valid arguments in favour of (merger),” he said. “This makes sense. Today telecom operators are required in all India. MTNL can’t operate outside metros and BSNL can’t operate in metros. In today’s context, it doesn’t make sense for an operator to confine only to one part of the country or city,” the telecom secretary said. However, the government would go ahead with the appointment of chairman and managing directors for both PSU telecom firms shortly.
“Selection process for filling up of the posts of CMDs of BSNL and MTNL has been completed. Further action is underway,” the telecom minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, said on Thursday while unveiling the department of telecom’s 100-days action plan and achievements. The post of BSNL CMD has been vacant since August 2010 year, while the position of MTNL CMD has been vacant since January last year.
Mr Mahesh Uppal, director of Com First, said that it is logical to merge BSNL and MTNL as it will help them to deal with their problems in a better way. “Their being a single company is a good idea as the distinction is artificial. The-re are synergies between the two firms and there is no reason not to merge them. It will give them eco-nomies of scale,” he said. Welcoming the move, Mr Anil Kumar of Telecom Watchdog said that the government should also merge TCIL, ITI and CDOT that was created by Mr Sam Pitroda with BSNL and MTNL so that each one’s role fits into one organisation. CDOT which gets around `80-100 crores annually from the government can research products, TCIL can roll out the towers and the manufacturing can be done by ITI which has six factories and BSNL which has seven. he said.
“The government should however delist ITI and MTNL before discussing any merger, since ITI has 27 acres of land in the heart of the electronic complex in Bengaluru. This is worth over `1,000 crore. Other-wise there can be problems like that which VSNL is facing today,” he said.