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Informist, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026

 

By Anand JC

 

NEW DELHI – Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. is focusing on improving its financial performance through a growing customer base while simultaneously enforcing cost discipline across all circles, the state-run telecom operator's Chairman and Managing Director Robert Ravi told Informist on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 on Tuesday. BSNL earlier this week reported a net loss for the December quarter, after having turned a profit in the year-ago quarter for the first time in 17 years.

 

Ravi stressed the company's sharper focus on limiting overall costs. "On costs, we are centralising network operations, phasing out legacy maintenance contracts and rationalising energy expenditure," he said. "Managing high technology costs has been made possible by the government's transformative revival package, which enabled us to more than 25,000 crores (INR 250 billion) in capital investment in FY25 (2024-25) alone — one of the largest in BSNL's history — covering 4G towers and spectrum, all built on indigenous Atmanirbhar technology."

 

The company's bottom line was weighed down by mounting expenses despite reporting revenue growth. "We want to first of all ensure that our EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation) is in line, and on target," Ravi said.

 

BSNL reported consolidated net loss of INR 13.02 billion for the December quarter, compared with a profit of INR 2.64 billion in the year-ago quarter. While the company is still loss-making on a full-year basis, it had turned a profit for the first time in 17 years in the December quarter of 2024-25 (Apr-Mar). Its consolidated revenue rose 7% on year to INR 53.25 billion.

 

BSNL's overall expenses for the quarter were INR 73.29 billion, up 35% on year, mainly due to higher depreciation and amortisation costs, which jumped to INR 27.29 billion from INR 8.14 billion in the year-ago quarter. The state-run telecom operator's depreciation and amortisation costs shot up as the company booked the benefits of its higher capital expenditure incurred in the year-ago quarter. "The higher depreciation we carry is simply the natural accounting reflection of that record infrastructure investment, and as revenues scale with our growing 4G and 5G network, the trajectory is firmly upward," Ravi said.

 

Despite monthly fluctuations, BSNL has managed to remain competitive in the telecom market, largely dominated by Bharti Airtel Ltd., Reliance Industries Ltd.'s Jio Infocomm, and Vodafone Idea Ltd. BSNL's customer base increased to 92.8 million in December from 88.6 million in March 2024, Union Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha earlier this month.  End

 

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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