Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s (BSNL) indigenously developed 4G stack, calling it a big step forward in India’s telecom journey.

The launch took place as BSNL marked its silver jubilee and put India in a small group of countries like Denmark, Sweden, South Korea and China that build their own telecom equipment.

"The launch reflects India's journey from dependence to confidence, driving employment, exports, fiscal revival and advancing the vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat," the Prime Minister said.

Developed fully with indigenous technology, the new 4G network is seen as a turning point that matches the government’s Digital India vision, aiming to bridge the digital divide and bring better services to rural communities.

The cloud-based 4G stack has been designed to be future-ready and can be upgraded to 5G whenever needed. Officials said this flexibility would help BSNL expand its services faster and strengthen India’s push towards digital growth.

With this rollout, more than 26,700 villages that had no network so far, including 2,472 in Odisha, will now be connected. These villages are spread across remote regions, border areas and places affected by left-wing extremism.

BSNL towers have been installed in several states, including Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Assam, Gujarat and Bihar.

At the same event, the Prime Minister also inaugurated over 97,500 new mobile towers, of which 92,600 are 4G-enabled. These have been built at a cost of about ₹37,000 crore.

The new towers are expected to serve more than 2 million additional subscribers.

They are powered by solar energy, making this the largest cluster of green telecom sites in the country and an important step towards sustainable infrastructure.

The Prime Minister further launched India’s 100 per cent 4G saturation project through Digital Bharat Nidhi, under which around 29,000 to 30,000 villages are being connected in a mission mode.