Niti Aayog has valued government telecom assets at Rs 35,100 Cr which can be monetised by FY 2024, according to the National Monetisation Pipeline released on Monday. The Niti has valued over 2.86 lakh k.m  of optical fibre assets laid by BBNL and BSNL under rural broadband project Bharatnet at Rs 26,300 cr.

The National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) has valued 13,567 mobile tower assets of BSNL and 1,350 of MTNL at Rs 8,800 cr that can also be monetised by FY 2024. Both the PSUs jointly own 69,047 mobile towers. Indicative monetisation value of Rs 26,300 Cr has been considered over FY23 and FY 24. It may be noted that the actual private investment towards these packages could be lower than the estimated capital expenditure and a portion of which may be met out of grant, the NMP document read.

According to the document, the indicative monetization value for Bharatnet fibre assets is considered based on a CAPEX approach. The total approved cost for Bharatnet project is Rs 61,109 Cr which includes Rs 42,068 Cr for BharatNet (Phase-I and Phase-II) and a maximum of Rs 19,041 Cr on viability gap funding (VGF) for implementation of the PPP model of BharatNet in 16 states, according to government information. As of March 31, 2021, the government has utilized Rs 24,201 Cr for the project. "The bidding process for the Bharatnet project is expected to be initiated during FY'22 and the actual outlay of CAPEX will happen over 2 years from the date of award," the document said.

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