India’s government approved state-owned BSNL’s proposal to spin off its mobile tower business into a separate unit to allow the troubled operator to generate revenue to pay down its massive debt.

The independent subsidiary, which will continue to be wholly owned by BSNL, will focus on boosting the use rate of its towers by adding new tenants to each site, The Economic Times reported.

BSNL, India’s fifth largest operator with nearly a 9 per cent market share, owns about 66,000 mobile towers across the country.

The company said it expects to feel “stress” this financial year because of intense competition sparked by Reliance Jio’s entry into the market in September 2016. BSNL reported a loss of INR48.9 billion ($733 million) in the April-December period in 2016.

It reportedly held merger talks earlier in the year with the country’s smallest operator MTNL, another state-owned company with operations only in Delhi and Mumbai. MTNL, which focuses on fixed-line operations, holds less than a 1 per cent mobile market share.