For the revival of state-owned, loss-making telecom firms MTNL and BSNL, the government is now toying with the idea of merging the wireless business of the former with the latter. MTNL reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 2,396 crore in 2016-17. (PTI) For the revival of state-owned, loss-making telecom firms MTNL and BSNL, the government is now toying with the idea of merging the wireless business of the former with the latter. The wireless business of MTNL is very small — it provides services only in two circles, Delhi and Mumbai, and has a total subscriber base of just 0.36 million. Though a merger of BSNL and MTNL has been on and off the government’s table for the last several years, this latest proposal of just merging the wireless unit of MTNL with BSNL is being discussed because it is simple to achieve. Since MTNL is a listed entity and BSNL is not, a proper merger between the two would entail a reverse merger process. Second, transfer of staff is problematic because of sen...