Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), which brought communication revolution across the country, is going through its worst phase. BSNL is struggling with financial crisis and it does not have enough money to pay salary of its employees.
If the number of employees ranged from 1 to 100 then it would have been understandable that the government may not have the money to for them. But, BSNL is not able to pay its 1.76 lakh employees.
This is the first time in history when the government is unable to pay the people for their hard work. However, the Employees Union has written a letter to Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha asking for a solution.
According to TOI, there will be a delay in the month of March to provide salaries to employees. The reason for not getting salaries is the fact that money comes from business companies usually after billing payment.
Even the BSNL board has approved the proposal for taking a bank loan, but the Department of Telecom has not yet forwarded it. The loss of BSNL is increasing every year. It recorded a loss of around Rs 8,000 crore for financial year 2018, while in FY 17, it was Rs 4,786 crore. A similar situation is seen in another government telecom company, MTNL.
About 55 percent of BSNL income is used for payments. At the same time, the company’s salary bill is growing at an annual rate of 8 percent. Communication Minister, Manoj Sinha said in a letter to All the Unions and Associations of BSNL (AUAB). He said that other telecom operators are also facing financial crisis but these companies are trying to manage the situation by investing.
Employees of the government BSNL company have now accused the Modi government of saying that the government is giving protection to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio. Union has claimed that Central government has not given allocation of spectrum to BSNL for 4G services so that it could not obstruct the way in Reliance JIO. The Union has accused the Modi government by making serious allegations that BSNL has been demanding spectrum demand for 4G services for a long time. But the government did not paid any attention to that.
