This is the first time in BSNL’s 18 years that the company has not been able to pay salary to about 1.68 lakh employees.
Image Courtesy: ET Telecom
As the crisis in the public sector telecom entity Bharat Sanchar Nigam
Limited (BSNL) continues, the employees and officers in majority of the circles
have not been paid their salary for the month of February. The corporate
management says that they do not have the cash flow for the payment of the
salaries. According to the employees, this is the first time in BSNL’s 18 years
that the company has not been able to pay salary to about 1.68 lakh employees.
“We were supposed to get the salaries on February 28 and we have not got
it yet. More than that, as BSNL faces cash deficit, it is not able make all the
bill payments,” said Swapan Chakraborty of BSNL Employees’ Union, while talking
to Newsclick.
Like all the telecom service providers except for Reliance Jio, the
revenue earnings of BSNL have drastically dipped, due to the brutal tariff war
initiated by Reliance Jio. As BSNL is facing financial crunch due to the
certain market condition, the company is not able to pay salary to its
employees.
Read More: How the Centre is Dismantling BSNL
According to the industry analysts, the tariff war may continue for some
more time. So, BSNL being a public sector company needs the support of the
central government to overcome the crisis. The BJP-led Modi government,
however, is not ready to extend their helping hands to the ailing BSNL.
“The Department of Telecommunication (DoT) is not allowing BSNL to take
bank loans to meet its operational expenditures. DoT only allows BSNL to take
bank loans for capital expenditure. The stringent condition imposed by DoT
restricts the operations of BSNL,” Chakraborty added.
It is important to note that the total debt of BSNL is Rs 13,900
crores. Whereas the debt of Vodafone idea is Rs 1.2 lakh crore and debt of
Airtel is 1.13 lakh crore. The debt of Jio is about Rs 2 lakh crore. Why only
BSNL was denied the permission to take loans, questioned Chakraborty.
When asked about the contractual workers, Chakraborty said that if this
is the condition of the regular employees, we can assume what condition would
be theirs. The contractual workers across majority of the circles have not been
paid their wages for last three months. In certain circles of Uttar Pradesh,
salaries of more than six months are pending.
While, All Union and Associations in BSNL (AUAB) was planning for a
relay hunger strike from March 12 and later, they have called off the protest
call saying that it would affect the services.
“We have been raising our issues and protesting against these. Now, we
will plan our further steps.”
Source : https://www.newsclick.in
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