MTNL ups planned investment in Delhi by 61 pc

NEW DELHI: State-run MTNL has raised its planned investment in Delhi by 60 per cent to Rs 1,282 crore for the current fiscal as it embarks on aggressive expansion of mobile, landline, broadband and other services.

The NYSE listed company had planned an outlay of Rs 796 crore for the current fiscal, but has recently taken a decision to increase it to Rs 1,282 crore in view of the expansion, sources said.

Since the PSU anticipated a shortfall of funds in the coming months for Delhi expansion, it decided to go for the increase, they said, adding that part of the planned outlay has already been spent.

The navratna company has set a target of adding 7.5 lakh mobile subscribers in the current fiscal to its 12.26 lakh user-base in Delhi. Some of the expenditure would be on installing equipment for broadband. The company plans to order equipment for 2.5 lakh lines of 3G (third generation mobile services) once the policy is out, sources said.

The PSU, which hopes to add more landline connections vis-a-vis surrenders in the current fiscal, has launched a slew of services in the recent past to lure the fixed line users.

It had tied up with Aksh Optifibre to offer Voice over Internet Protocol services offering cheap international calls. With the launch of the VoIP, the company is providing three services, Internet, VoIP and IPTV, simultaneously through a single MTNL telephone connection.