State-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) Wednesday said it was making discussions with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd to provide clients a pan-India service, adding that it was up to the administration to make a decision if there will be an amalgamation.
On the sidelines of an event, MTNL's chairman and managing director Kuldip Singh stated, "Merger is for the government to decide, but bringing synergy is one of the objectives of the merger. The idea of synergy is to provide seamless connectivity to the customers."
Both the telecom companies are going through big losses, and the administration has directed them to synergize their resources with the aim to slash costs and offer up Pan-India services to all their subscribers.
MTNL is the provider of telecommunication services in the national capital and Mumbai whereas BSNL functions in the remaining circles of the country.
As per reports, the Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises (BRPSE) had suggested that BSNL should amalgamate with its counterpart MTNL, and that will assist the company to make recovery from losses.
"We want to give single window services such as one billing, one redressal mechanism to both state-run firms subscribers," Mr. Singh added.
During the last week, the telecom giant MTNL registered an annual net loss of 8.27%, which stood at Rs 2,826 crore as compared to Rs 2,610.9 crore during the same period previous year.
Total income surged to Rs 3,841.2 crore during the year from Rs 3,781 in the corresponding period of last year.
BSNL reported a net loss of Rs 1,823 crore in 2009-2010.
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