Govt to pay cash-starved telco MTNL’s $5.1 billion bond bill

The Indian government will service all future bond payments for Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. as the state-owned company faces a liquidity crisis, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The loss-making firm has 426.8 billion rupees ($5.1 billion) of interest and principal repayments due on local-currency bonds guaranteed by the government by 2034, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Of this total, 46.2 billion rupees are due later this year.