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The total debt on four major telecom operators in the country stood at Rs 4,09,905 crore in the financial year 2024, with state-owned BSNL recording the lowest debt among competitors at Rs 23,297 crore, Parliament was informed on Wednesday. According to data shared by Minister of State for Communications Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar in a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Vodafone Idea registered a debt of Rs 2.07 lakh crore, Bharti Airtel Rs 1.25 lakh crore and Jio Infocomm Rs 52,740 crore as of March 31, 2024. BSNL had a debt of Rs 40,400 crore in FY22, which was reduced to Rs 28,092 crore with the help of a revival package and financial support from the government. "In 2019, the first revival package amounting to around Rs 69 thousand crores was given that brought down the operating costs of BSNL/MTNL. In 2022, a revival package amounting to around Rs 1.64 Lakh crore was given. It focused on infusing fresh capital, restructuring debt, viability gap funding for rural telephony etc," Sekh
The Manipur government has served a show cause notice to a private telecom company over the availability "of internet data services in mobile phones in some areas of Churachandpur and adjoining Bishnupur district on September 20" while the suspension of mobile data service is still in force, an official said. Commissioner (Home) T Ranjit Singh, in a letter to Ashish Bansal, Chief Technical Officer, Airtel, Imphal on Thursday remarked it is "a serious lapse on the part of service provider and this lapse might have led to the dissemination of inflammatory and provocative clips and messages in various social media platforms leading to communal tension, hatred and rumours," the official said. The letter said, "Considering the very sensitive and volatile law and order situation currently prevailing in the state, the aforesaid lapses have been viewed very seriously by the state government, and this amounts to violation of the government orders." The state government has asked Airtel to gi