BSNL Q2 revenue at Rs 5,347 crore; achieves 93% of quarterly target: Scindia

New Delhi: State-owned telecom firm BSNL Limited has achieved 93 per cent of its target revenue for the September quarter of FY26, reaching Rs 5,347 crore, Union Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Thursday.

The minister has asked BSNL to follow stricter parameters to monitor the quality of services on a daily basis, instead of weeks and months, and tighter deadlines of hours and days to complete pending projects.

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After the quarterly review of BSNL, the minister said the company's revenue for the first half of the current fiscal stood at Rs 11,134 crore.

"This quarter, we have achieved a 93 per cent revenue run rate vis-a-vis our target. So, we had set a target of Rs 5,740 crore, and we've achieved Rs 5,347 crore. So, we are very close to a rather bold target that we had set for ourselves based on last year's jump in earnings," Scindia said.

The minister said there is a target to increase BSNL's revenue by 20 per cent for the full fiscal year to Rs 27,500 crore.

"Our ARPU has also increased. It was Rs 81 in Q1 (first quarter) of this year, and it increased to Rs 92 in Q2 (second quarter) of this (fiscal) year. So, there's been a 12 per cent improvement in ARPU," the minister said.

Average revenue per user (ARPU) is a key metric to measure the growth of a telecom operator.

The minister said some circles -- Maharashtra, Kerala, UP East, Andaman & Nicobar, and Jammu and Kashmir -- have done exceptionally well where ARPU is as high as Rs 214.

Scindia raised concern about the performance of circles like Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Kolkata, where ARPU is in the range of Rs 60.

The minister directed BSNL officials to do a comparative analysis of the performance of competitors and address the gap that the PSU has in every circle.

Scindia asked BSNL to replace batteries required for base stations of the company by December instead of the timeline of March 2026 set by the company.

He asked BSNL to keep a control on cost, and any escalation in cost should be proportional to the growth in the revenue of the company.

Minister of State for Telecom Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani said that turning around BSNL stories will go a long way.

"It requires a lot of work, but at the end of the day, if you have the willpower, if you really want to do it, you can do it," Pemmasani said.

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