As part of the nationwide rollout of over 97,000 mobile towers built with indigenous technology, West Bengal got facilities worth over Rs 1,166 crore, boosting connectivity and digital inclusion in the state, an official said on Saturday.
Of the total, BSNL has set up 1,596 4G sites in the Kolkata Telephones district – covering the city along with South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly – at a cost of about Rs 384 crore, he said.
The West Bengal Telecom Circle (excluding Kolkata region) has rolled out 2,148 sites across 23 districts at an investment of Rs 782 crore, the official said.
In a major boost to telecommunication infrastructure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated BSNL's 'Swadeshi' 4G stack, marking India's entry into a coveted league of nations that manufacture telecom equipment.
Modi, who launched the facility on the occasion of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s silver jubilee, also commissioned more than 97,500 mobile 4G towers, including 92,600 4G technology sites of the telecom service provider.
Serving nearly 25 lakh customers, the Kolkata circle of BSNL collected Rs 484 crore revenue in the 2024-25 financial year (FY'25), of which Rs 190 crore came from mobile services. It also turned EBIDTA positive at 26 per cent, the official said.
With a subscriber base of 26 lakh, the West Bengal Telecom Circle reported Rs 482 crore in revenue in FY'25, including Rs 183 crore from mobile services, and also became EBIDTA positive, according to the BSNL official.
Between June 2024 and September 2025, BSNL’s total subscriber base increased from 8.7 crore to 9 crore, with more than 1 crore new 4G customers.
Of this, Kolkata Telephones and West Bengal Telecom Circle together contributed over 7.8 lakh new 4G users.
The Bharat Telecom Stack is a fully homegrown telecommunications solution designed, developed, and deployed in India.
It is the first time a 4G-ready stack has been built in India and is capable of scaling up to 5G.
With this launch, India becomes the fifth country in the world to have built a self-reliant, indigenous telecom technology stack supporting 4G and beyond.
Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.