Blaming the previous UPA government for the sorry state of BSNL, the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Ravishankar Prasad today said that the NDA government was successful in making BSNL earn an operative profit of Rs.672 crores in the last 20 months.

Replying to a question on the BSNL, Prasad told reporters that when the AB Vajpayee-led NDA government left in 2004, BSNL was recording profits of Rs.10,000 crores. After 10 years of UPA rule, BSNL was reporting losses to the tune of Rs.8,000 crores. Within one year and eight months of the NDA rule led by Narendra Modi, for the first time BSNL has reported an operative profit of Rs.672 crore, he said.

He added that BSNL was adding six to seven lakh new mobile subscribers each month. There were about 22 lakh connections in February 2016. BSNL currently has 21,000 towers already, and there are plans to set up another 21,000 towers. Also in the offing are 40,000 wi-fi hotspots in another two years.

When asked about 4G, he said that the ministry has already instructed BSNL to go ahead with it.