State-owned telecom major BSNL will provide broadband connectivity to 2.50 lakh villages across the country over the next 2-3 years, a top company official said today.

"As a part of providing broadband connectivity to rural areas, in next 2-3 years, BSNL would cover at least 2.50 lakh villages in the country through wireline, wimax technology or through fibre connectivity," BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Kuldeep Goyal told reporters here.

"The country has over six lakh villages out of which 2.50 lakh are gram panchayats. We intend to cover all these 2.50 lakh villages by providing high-speed broadband," he said.

He said there were 29,000 telephone exchanges in rural areas and of this wireline broadband was available in 24,000 exchanges.

"No other operator has provided broadband in rural areas on wire line. Only the BSNL provides it...," Goyal said.

In addition, BSNL, under a partnership with Union HRD Ministry, would set up a network connecting 419 universities and 20,000 colleges through broadband with high bandwidth capacity, he said.

Goyal said the BSNL had been reorganised completely and various business verticals set up for driving the company's growth.

"We have reorganised BSNL completely and we have business verticals like Consumer Fixed Access, Consumer Mobile Access, and entreprise. For the Consumer Entreprise Business we have set up Platinum officers in eight cities and have set up Gold and Silver officers in every state.

"Currently all the Banks have BSNL network and the connectivity for core banking solution is provided by us.. We are having good entreprise business and are trying to build on that...," he said.

On the financial performance of the company, Goyal said he was confident of maintaining the last year levels. The revenue would remain flat this year despite the substantial addition of customers, he added.

He said with the launch of 3G services, the data revenues would pick up gradually.

'In the US, data revenues jumped by 1,000 times... I am sure with the launch of BSNL Live, there will be good revenue growth,' he said.