"You cannot afford to loose even one customer," he said, inaugurating Sir C V Raman Hostel and a seminar on 'broadband services' at the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial Telecom Training Centre of BSNL in Chennai.
"In the recent years, 80 per cent of new connections have been provided by the private sector. We are targeting 20 crore telephone connections by 2007. The public sector corporations should target to achieve more share in the new connections over the next few years," he added.
He also referred to a recent meeting he had with the head of circles and chief general managers to prepare detailed plans with yearly and monthly targets for new connections.
Since the revenue generation through voice services was decreasing, BSNL should also focus on data services for financial viability, he said.
Maran said that the Centre was working to provide broadband services at an affordable price to connect villages with their taluks and district headquarters. "The government is also contemplating making the personal computers available at a price of around Rs10,000," he added.
Maran also said that the broadband services were expected to be started in Tamil Nadu by December and in other places it will be introduced from next year. The new hostel with an investment of Rs1.6 crore (Rs 16 million) is spread over an area of 13127 sq ft.
The entire hostel provides a wireless environment by using CDMA-based WLL telephones for voice and Wi-Fi enabled computers for data.