BSNL staff end three-day stir, flay policies of Union Govt

Our Correspondent

Hoshiarpur, February 20

The three-day strike called by All Unions and Associations of BSNL (AUAB), a united platform of various organisations of BSNL employees, came to an end today.

The irate employees staged a dharna at the BSNL Telephone Exchange Complex at Vakilan Bazaar here. AUAB has put forward an eight-point charter of demands which includes allocation of 4G spectrum to BSNL and it is the primary demand in the charter. Union leaders said though the private operators were allotted 4G spectrum in October 2016, the BSNL was still waiting for it. It had reduced the competency and eventually leading to the dismantling of the BSNL.

The BSNL employees unions including— BSNL Addressing the protesters, Jagtar Singh, joint secretary (North India) Sanchar Nigam Executives’ Association, said: “Due to the entry of Reliance Jio with predatory pricing, all other telecom companies including Vodaphone, Idea and Airtel have started posting losses. As a part of this phenomenon, the losses of the BSNL have increased to Rs 7,992 crore in 2017-18. Revenue has fallen drastically since in the competition with Reliance Jio the tariffs were drastically reduced.”

He said the acquiring of 4G spectrum by Reliance Jio was done in an unethical manner. The original license to Reliance Jio was only for internet services. But it was allowed license for voice calls also. Further the Reliance Jio was allowed by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to utilise predatory pricing until it acquires 30 per cent of the customers.

This is highly irregular and recently the TDSAT (Telecom Disputes Settlement Authority) has struck off this order of the TRAI.

Balvir Singh, convener AUAB, Hoshiarpur said: “The Government is not agreeing to the ‘Land Management Policy, proposed by the BSNL for monetising the land to get the revenue of Rs 7,000 to Rs 10,000 crores per year.”

“The government is thinking of closing or privatising the BSNL and reducing the employees’ number at large scale. The management is unable to pay full salary to the employees. The management has requested the unions to agree for deferring the February 2019 salary. But the Unions did not agree.”

Pardeep Singh, Chairman, AUAB, Hoshiapur, said: “The BSNL employees remained on strike for three days demanding to ensure financial viability of the BSNL as per the decisions taken by the Group of

Ministers at the time of formation of the BSNL.

The employees demanded to scrap BSNL’s outsourcing for the operation and maintenance of its mobile towers and implementation of the 3rd pay revision with 15 per cent.

The other demands include-implement assurance of the Hon’ble Minister for Communications for delinking pension revision from pay revision; payment of pension contribution by the BSNL as per the government rule and settlement of the left out the issues of the 2nd Pay Revision Committee.