BSNL’s prime land gets a ‘fair’ valuation of Rs 65,000 crore

BSNL had a ‘book value’ of Rs 975 crore for the 15,000-odd land and building assets it holds, Anupam Shrivastava, CMD, said adding the company got a reassessment done using the ‘fair value’ method, to reflect a true picture. 

BSNL, which figured among the top loss-making firms with a net loss of about Rs 3,880 crore in the government’s Public Enterprises Survey 2015-16, initiated the valuation exercise as part of project ‘Vasundhara’ in April this year. KPMG was roped in as a consultant for the project, which is now nearing completion. 

The exercise, done alongside the aggressive business revival plans the company pursues, saw one-third of the freehold land assets, mostly in prime locations in major cities being reassessed at the current market value. “We decided to go for fair valuation of a third of our land parcels...freehold land. For entire land holding, the ‘book value’ was so far Rs 975 crore in our books of account. With this, the fair valuation has been estimated at about Rs 65,000 crore just for one-third of land parcels,” he said here.

According to Shrivastava, the valuation was taken up as part of a “special window allowed under the Indian Accounting Standard”. “We were informed by our consultant KPMG that a window of opportunity was provided for this year, for all companies... So, we are among companies that have undertaken this exercise of fair valuation of the land parcels,” he said.

The valuation exercise is “97-98% complete,” he added. This includes land parcels in Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Chennai and Kolkata. “The land on which BSNL has its corporate office has itself been valued at nearly Rs 2,500 crore,” he noted.