After Three-day Relay Hunger Strike, BSNL Employees Plan to Intensify Their Struggle

Following the three-day relay hunger strike, BSNL employees plan to intensify their struggle, demanding the implementation of the assurances that were given by the Centre on February 24 this year. As per the call of the All Unions and Associations of BSNL (AUAB), the employees have observed a relay hunger strike from July 24 to July 26 at various circles and corporate office across the country.

The workers and unions have been raising their demands regarding the revision of the pension of the BSNL retirees, payment of the pension contribution by BSNL and allotment of 4G spectrum to BSNL as per the proposal made by the BSNL management. As the struggle of employees continues, Minister of Telecommunication Manoj Sinha, in a meeting with union representatives on February 24, had assured that the government would take steps to sort out the issues of the BSNL employees.

“On February 24 this year, in a meeting with all union representatives, the minister gave us categorical assurance regarding our third pay revision. He also assured that BSNL will be entitled as a special category company in the public sector. He also assured that the cabinet would exempt BSNL from the affordable clause of third revision committee,” said Swapan Chakraborty of BSNL Employees Union (BSNLEU), one of the leading organisations under AUAB, while speaking to Newsclick.

“However, after five months of assurance, there were not any signs of processing those assurances,” he added. As the government failed to meet the assurances, the unions and associations were forced to launch a relay hunger strike. Various unions and associations including BSNLEU, SNEA, NFTE and AIBSNLEA have unitedly come under AUAB for the relay hunger strike.

“Our second demand was on the pay revision. BSNL employees are absorbed from the Department of Telecommunication (DoT). DoT employees have central government pension under rule 37 (a) of pension rule. So, as the central government salaries are already revised as per the 7th Pay Commission recommendations, the employees absorbed in BSNL are demanding for the pension revision. Earlier minister assured so. But, now DoT is saying that it would is related to the wage revision and when it is done, then pension revision also would be done,” said Swapan Chakraborty.

Unions have demanded that it should not be done since the liability of pension revision does not lie with the BSNL, but lies with the Centre.

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Apart from these, the unions have been demanding the allocation of 4G spectrum. BSNL hasn’t still had 4G services in the highly competitive telecom sector. The government, on the other hand, has rejected it saying that the private sector companies are incurring losses. But, the unions have pointed out that the public sector telecom service provider has been performing much better amidst all these negligence from the side of the government.

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“We have pleaded the government for the allocation of 4G spectrum, but the government is not willing to implement it. So we cannot provide 4G services for our customers. As the result of this, the existing customers will move away from BSNL and BSNL will be thrown out of the market,” K Sebastian of SNEA told Newsclick earlier.

“Though the government says that the BSNL is running a loss, during the last financial year, BSNL put an operational profit of 1684 crores,” said Sebastian. The current net asset value of BSNL is Rs 1.15 lakh crore compared to Rs 44,000 crore last year.

Finally, when asked about the response of the government, Chakraborty said: “Till today, the government has not responded. We cannot wait for long and we will plan a further course of action.”

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