NE BUSINESS BUREAU
NEW DELHI, JAN 29
BSNL employees’ union has alleged that the company’s management has failed in implementing the revival package offered by the government in October 2019.
In a letter to BSNL Chairman and Managing Director P K Purwar on Thursday, the union has alleged that the state-owned telecom firm failed to disburse salary on the due date in 2020 despite the government’s revival package.
The union added that the monthly revenue collection of BSNL stands at Rs 1,500 crore and the expenditure for the payment of the net salary of the employees is around Rs 450 but still, salary is not being disbursed on time.
BSNL did not offer any comment on the matter.
“The BSNL management’s HR policy is a total disaster. On the one hand, the employees are totally demoralised and de-motivated due to the non-disbursement of salary on time.
“On the other hand, even the HR issues that do not involve any expenditure to the company have not been settled for more than one-and-a-half years,” the union alleged.
It said the government has allotted 4G spectrum free of cost to BSNL and also extended the company’s sovereign guarantee to raise Rs 8,500 crore from the market. Salary expenditure has been cut down by 50 percent by way of the retirement of around 80,000 employees under the voluntary retirement scheme.
“Despite all these factors, the financial condition of the company has not shown much improvement. This only shows the total failure of the management in implementing the revival package announced by the government of India in October 2019,” the letter said.
The union alleged that BSNL could have launched 4G services eight months ago at a pan-India level had the management utilised the opportunity.
It said BSNL’s existing customers have started porting out to other 4G services providers.
BSNL lost 18,913 mobile customers in November, according to telecom regulator Trai.
The union also questioned BSNL management’s decision to remove contract workers as it is impacting the operation and maintenance of the company’s landline and broadband network.
“Lakhs of landline and broadband customers are leaving BSNL every month, due to the deterioration of the services,” the letter said.
BSNL has been continuously losing landline customers while private telecom operators, including Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, are acquiring new customers every month.
According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, BSNL lost 1.39 lakh wireline customers in November, while Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea gained 1.95 lakh, 54,449, and 6,257 new customers, respectively.
