BSNL To Sell 10,000 Telecom Towers For Around Rs 4,000 Crore To Meet Targets Laid Out By Centre Under NMP: Report

State-owned telecom firm BSNL has begun the process for selling its 10,000 mobile towers, pegged at an enterprise value of Rs 4,000 crore.

The move is reportedly part of the telecom PSU's efforts to meet targets laid out by the Centre as part of its national monetisation pipeline (NMP).

The state-owned telecom services provider has engaged KPMG as a financial advisor to administer the sale of the telecom towers, people aware of the development were quoted by Economic Times as saying.

BSNL provides telecom service in every part of the country except Mumbai and Delhi, which have been covered by MTNL, another telecom PSU set to be merged with BSNL.

BSNL currently has 68,000 towers of which around 13,567 have co-locations from third-party telecom operators.

The company is reportedly selling only those towers that have co-location arrangements with third party telecom service providers such as Reliance Jio and Airtel.

The tower sale, according to industry watchers, could attract interest from Brookfield-owned Data Infrastructure Trust, which acquired over 130,000 towers of Reliance Jio in 2019, and Indus Towers, which is partly owned by Airtel.

According to the report, BSNL's tower portfolio is said to be one of the best in the country as nearly 70 per cent of its towers are fiberised and are ready for 4G and 5G deployments.

BSNL, as part of its NMP targets, has to sell 13,567 towers by the financial year 2025 while MTNL, which operates in Delhi and Mumbai, has to sell 1,350 towers.

In total, the two telecom PSUs will together sell 14,917 towers in a phased manner.