Nokia Corp. will expand mobile networks for BSNL in northern India, in a deal valued at $140 million, the world’s largest mobile phone maker said Thursday.

The expansion, which includes radio network equipment and services, is an extension of a $285 million contract signed last year by Nokia and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, one of India’s leading telecoms.

It will enable BSNL to increase coverage and its capacity to 2 million new subscribers in the states of Jammu-Kashmir, Haryana, Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan, the companies said.

BSNL has 42 million subscribers and more than 12 million cell phone subscribers using GSM, or the Global System for Mobile Communications, technology.

Nokia, a market leader in India, considers the subcontinent a natural location to meet surging demand in the Asia-Pacific region that will help push the global mobile subscriber base beyond a predicted 2 billion mark by the end of 2005.

In April, it announced that Chennai in southeastern India would be the site for its new mobile manufacturing plant expected to employ up to 2,000 people.

Based in Espoo just outside the Finnish capital, Nokia operates in 130 countries and has about 55,500 employees.