KOLKATA:

Nigam plans to raise nearly

6,000

of fresh resources by monetizing property holdings and sharing/leasing its 73,000-odd mobile towers even as the telecom department explores ways to resurrect the loss-making

to help it meet

costs.

BharatSancharRscroretelcocapexThe state-run telco also proposes to boost cashflows by targeting 45% revenue growth over the next five years and leasing out infrastructure across its telecom factories and training centres, according to an internal presentation to the telecom department ( DoT ), seen by ET.“Utilisation of BSNL ’s land assets can immediately generate over Rs 4,000 crore and projected revenue from sharing and leasing of its passive infrastructure like towers can garner another Rs 1600 crore,” the note shows.Leveraging its tower infrastructure is top priority since nearly 50,000 of these towers are linked by optic fibre cable , which is handy for supporting high-speed data services.In addition, leasing of its telecom factories and training facilities is likely to garner in excess of Rs 200 crore over the next two years.BSNL is one of the largest land-bank holders among state-owned firms with properties running into thousands of crores of rupees across some 3,500 towns. Its fund raising exercise is part of its ambitions to pump in Rs 39,468 crore as capex over the next five years to upgrade its countrywide landline, mobile and broadband networks.In the near term, BSNL desperately needs cash to strategically upgrade its landline network as it is losing 1.4 lakh wireline customers every month. Over the past decade, its landline customer base -- currently at 181.8 lakh – has shrunk by 40%.To address this, it proposes to conclude upgradation of 100 lakh landlines by September 2017 in two stages, involving the replacement of existing digital exchanges with IP-enabled switches.Landline network upgradation is at the heart of BSNL’s plans to provide broadband connections along with landline in all exchanges. Further, it will also help it meet demand for high-bandwidth services, through the planned rollout of fibre-to-the-home or `FTTP’ network across 172 cities that will offer speeds upto 1 Gbps, the note shows.A senior BSNL official said, “Since landline can deliver better speeds for data and facilitate broadband, by modernising basic phone exchanges, it is possible to offer value added services”.Once considered a crown jewel among India’s state-run companies, BSNL has been incurring losses for the past five years as it continues to struggle against more nimble private telcos, and has been lately forced to tighten spending in its bid to survive amid plunging revenue.Its market share in the national mobile turf has dipped to 10.95 % as on May 2014, from 14.87 % in March 2009. Small wonder, the telco now proposes to spend Rs 4,084 crore to add over 148 lakh lines to its pan-India mobile network to enhance coverage and services quality. BSNL expects to conclude its mobile network expansion exercise by April next year.