Our Bureau
New Delhi, March 24 Business line
Over three lakh employees of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd plan to go on indefinite strike from April 20 to protest against the proposals of a committee headed by Mr Sam Pitroda.
The committee had suggested a 15-point turnaround plan including downsizing the company by one lakh workers and 30 per cent stake sale through an Initial Public Offering or to a strategic partner.
“The employees are completely against the proposed disinvestment of BSNL which is neither necessary for growth nor in the interest of the nation and the workers. The recommendation of Sam Pitroda Committee to retrench one lakh workers through VRS route is unwarranted. More than one lakh employees have retired after formation of BSNL and within the next 5 years about 60,000 employees will retire. The 6 lakh workers in Department of Telecom in 1986 has now been reduced to three lakhs,” said Mr V A N Namboodiri, Convenor of the Joint Action Committee of BSNL Unions / Associations.
“Outsourcing and unbundling of copper cables will only help private companies at the cost of BSNL. In fact, the immediate requirement of BSNL is to procure required mobile lines since the 93 million lines tender has been scrapped by BSNL Board,” he added.
Another demand of the union is that the Government should ensure pension revision to the retired BSNL employees absorbed from DoT.
“Despite these concerns have been brought to the notice of the management several times, not even a meeting had been held by the management. Such important decisions of disinvestment, tender issues, development etc, are taken by management without any consultation with the employees who have big stakes in the future of the company,” said a press statement.
If the Government does not step in time to resolve the imbroglio, over 60 million subscribers and about 29 million fixed line users could expect disrupted telecom services.
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