New Delhi, Feb 22 (IANS) State-run telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) was Thursday asked by Communications and Information Technology Minister Dayanidhi Maran to aggressively boost its GSM presence by adding 108 million subscribers by 2010.

In addition, the telecom giant was also asked to double its turnover to $20 billion in the next three years with an increase of 27 percent year-on-year.

"The company has been asked to increase its GSM connections to reach 108 million between January 2008 to December 2010," Maran told reporters on the sidelines of a BSNL conference here.

"It should also double its target by focusing on GSM connectivity and by adding 500,000 broadband connections per month from January 2008," he added.

Earlier, the minister also announced a special incentive package to attract investments for setting up semiconductor and other micro and nanotechnology manufacturing industries in India.

According to the scheme, if a unit is located in a special economic zone (SEZ) the incentive would be 20 percent of the capital expenditure during the first 10 years.

For units set up outside the SEZ, the incentive would be 25 percent of the capital expenditure during the first 10 years and countervailing duty on capital goods would be exempted.

According to MAIT, a body representing India's IT hardware, training and R&D services sectors, the move will provide impetus to paving the way for high-end capital intensive IT manufacturing, thus enabling the industry to graduate from the current assembly-oriented operations to deep and competitive manufacturing capabilities.