BSNL Employees Protest in Amritsar Demanding Pending Salary

New Delhi: Contractual Workers in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) staged a protest in Amritsar on Thursday, June 13, demanding payment of their salaries pending for the past seven months. The protest was organised by the BSNL Casual and Contract Workers’ Union. The employees also alleged that the state-run telecom operator had not renewed their contract that expired on June 10.

Jaskiran Singh Jaj, general secretary of the union, told The Tribune that the employees were informed on June 9 that their contracts would be expiring the next day. “These employees have been working for the last 20-25 years. Ideally the workers should have been given a notice. Now, the contract employees are demanding their pending salaries,” he said.

The employees have been rendered jobless after working for BSNL since a long time, due to the company’s decision to not renew their contacts, said the protesting workers who demanded pending salaries as well as contract renewal .

Also Read: Centre’s Move to Introduce VRS in BSNL A Step Towards Privatisation, Says Union

The state-run telecom operator had announced earlier this month that it would retrench its contractual workers across the country to cut down “avoidable expenditure”. About 30% of the contractual workers are being laid off by the struggling company which is on the verge of collapsing because of liquidity crunch and negligence from the Centre. BSNL workers from the certain circles across the country are yet to receive their wages for the past one year. Apart from this, more than one lakh contractual workers have not been paid their wages for the past four months.

The contractual workers are usually employed through private contractors, but BSNL pays them their wages and gives them other service benefits. In the past four months, whenever the contractors sought money from the telecom operators to pay wages to employees, they were told by the management that the company had no money, owing to the financial crisis.

BSNL employees have repeatedly accused the Centre of not allowing the company to grow, paving the way for its privatisation. In April 2019, the Centre proposed to implement the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) in BSNL and MTNL. The employees’ unions and associations opposed this move saying that introduction of this scheme in the company was an attempt at reducing the workforce before handing it over to private players.

Also Read: Centre’s Move to Introduce VRS in BSNL A Step Towards Privatisation, Says Union

The Indian telecom industry had stepped into the 4G spectrum era a long time ago. However, the two public sector telecom operators, BSNL and MTNL, were not allocated 4G spectrum. Now, as the country is all set to enter the 5G era, state-run BSNL is still waiting for 4G spectrum allocation.

The employees and officers of BSNL have made repeated attempts seeking revival of the PSU, but all their attempts have been rendered useless due to the Centre’s negligence, the employees said.