Pravin Kumar Purwar has been appointed as the new Chairman-Managing Director (CMD) of BSNL, reports the Economic Times. Current CMD Anupam Shrivastava’s term and tenure will end in June this year, from when Purwar will take over. Shrivastava was appointed as CMD in January 2015.
In 2014, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) appointed Purwar as the chairman and managing director of MTNL. This was after AK Garg retired from the company in June 2014. Purwar was previously the Director (Finance) at MTNL and PESB had recommended (pdf) his name for the CMD position in November 2013. In May 2018, he was confirmed as a full time chairman of MTNL.
Recent developments at BSNL
Earlier this month, Eros Now entered into a content partnership with BSNL. The Eros Now app will now be available to BSNL’s prepaid and postpaid customers on all packs and tariffs by the end of January.
Last month, over 3,000 customer service centres of BSNL started providing Aadhaar updation and enrolment facilities.
In October, BSNL signed a deal with Swedish telecom equipment manufacturer Ericsson to develop 5G use cases, knowledge sharing, and keeping up with industry trends such as 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standardization.
In September, it tied up with Japanese telecom giant NTT and Softbank for technology on 5G and deployment of Internet of Things devices (IoT) for smart cities.
About BSNL
BSNL is running through one of the worst financial crises.
It is caused by the stiff competition unleashed by Jio and the lack of 4G services. Around 1.76 lakh are present at the time of the formation of BSNL in 2000.
BSNL’s wage bill is 65 percent of its revenue.
