According to the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP)  issued on Monday, Niti Aayog has evaluated state telecom holdings at Rs 35,100 crore, which can be monetised by FY- 2024.
The government’s think tank - Niti Aayog, has valued over 2.86 lakh kilometres of optical fibre assets systematised by BBNL and BSNL under rural broadband project Bharatnet at Rs 26,300 crore.

The NMP has evaluated 13,567 mobile tower assets of BSNL and 1,350 MTNL at Rs 8,800 crore that will also be able to be monetised by 2024. Both the PSUs collectively hold 69,047 mobile towers.
The NMP document said that the government had considered the Indicative monetisation value of Rs 26,300 crores 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.

 
As per the document, the indicative monetisation value for Bharatnet fibre assets is analysed based on a CapEx approach. The total sanctioned cost for the Bharatnet project is Rs 61,109 crore.
As of March 31, 2021, the government has employed Rs 24,201 crore for the project.
5,25,706 kilometres of optical fibre has been laid under the Bharatnet project. It aims to connect all villages in the country with a high-speed broadband network, according to the NMP.

Earlier the scope of the project was limited to 2.5 lakh gram panchayats which have now been extended to village level.

The NMP intends to actualise 6 lakh crore from asset trade during the financial year 22-25 across various sectors, of which 6 per cent value is anticipated to be learned from the telecom sector.

“The NMP is meant to serve as an essential roadmap for the Asset monetisation of various brownfield infrastructure assets across roads, railways, shipping, aviation, power, telecom, oil and gas, and warehousing sectors,” the document said.