PSU telecoms lose 46 lakh landline connections
Friday, April 18th, 2008Telecom PSUs BSNL and MTNL lost about 46 lakh landline connections in 2007-08, Rajya Sabha was informed on 17th April. While 43.8 lakh BSNL lines were surrendered in the year, its sister concern MTNL lost 2.1 lakh connections, Mr Jyotiraditya Scindia, Minister of State for Communications and IT told the Upper House in a written reply.
The minister said the reasons for withdrawal of landline connections includes preference for mobile phones, move to private operator, disconnections due to non-payment of dues and surrendering of second telephone taken for getting internet connection due to availability of broadband. The total number of landlines in the country as on March 2008 is 3.9 crore, which was 4 crore in March 2007. At present, BSNL has 3.1 crore-landline users while MTNL has 36.8 lakh users.