In a landmark stride for India’s telecom sector, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s (BSNL) fully indigenous 4G stack, propelling the country into the select league of nations that build their own telecom infrastructure.
The launch, coinciding with BSNL’s silver jubilee, also saw the commissioning of over 97,500 new 4G towers, including 92,600 advanced sites, at an investment of around ₹37,000 crore.
Developed with swadeshi technology, the cloud-based system is future-ready and can be seamlessly upgraded to 5G. With this rollout, India joins countries like Denmark, Sweden, South Korea, and China in deploying homegrown telecom solutions.
The project will extend connectivity to 26,700 previously unconnected villages, including remote and border regions as well as areas affected by left-wing extremism, bringing digital access to over 20 lakh new subscribers. In Odisha alone, 2,472 villages will benefit.
Notably, the new towers are solar-powered, making this India’s largest cluster of green telecom sites and a big push toward sustainable infrastructure.
The Prime Minister also announced 100% 4G saturation through the Digital Bharat Nidhi initiative, ensuring that nearly 30,000 villages are connected in mission mode. Officials hailed the rollout as a transformative step in bridging India’s digital divide, empowering rural communities, and laying the groundwork for BSNL’s 5G journey.
