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BSNL

Indian central public sector undertaking

  • 9 min read
  • 5 chapters

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History

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited is an Indian government enterprise and its history can be traced back to British Raj. The foundation of the telecommunications network in India was laid by the British sometime during the 19th century. During the British era, the first telegraph line was established between Kolkata and Diamond Harbour in 1850. The British East India Company started using the telegraph in 1851, and by 1854, telegraph lines were laid across the country. In 1854, the telegraph service was opened to the public, and the first telegram was sent from Mumbai to Pune. In 1885, the Indian Telegraph Act was passed by the British Imperial Legislative Council. After the bifurcation of the Post and Telegraph department in the 1980s, the creation of Department of Telecom eventually led to the emergence of the government owned telegraph and telephone enterprise, which led to the foundation of BSNL. Until the early 2000s, BSNL was the only service provider for Indian Railways to control and administrative communication circuits. Later, they were separated as RailTel.

For 160 years, BSNL had operated the public telegram service. In 2010, the telex network between its 182 offices was replaced with the "Web-Based Telegram Messaging System" which relied on internet connections rather than telex lines (which are more reliable where power outages are more common). This led to a decline in service, and the company applied the title "diminished service" to telegrams in 2010. Finally, on 15-July-2013, the public telegram service was shut down completely. BSNL also enjoys a part of revenue from the payments made for private players for recharge plans.

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Source and licence. Adapted from the Wikipedia article “BSNL” (this version, 2026-09-26) by its contributors, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Lablypedia has left out its tables, references and most pictures, and linked it to other Lablypedia articles.