The Sanchar Nigam Executives’ Association (SNEA), one of the employees unions of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, has alleged that the Finance Ministry is opposing the proposed package for reviving the public sector telecom company.
“The Finance Ministry is opposing all the proposals in the revival plan. The ministry is of the view that BSNL cannot be revived and no revival package is required,” according to a note prepared by SNEA.
Earlier, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and NITI Aayog (Government’s policy think-tank) were of the same opinion, but they changed their stance later. They are now supporting the revival plan, SNEA said.
Accusing the political leadership of “waiting for BSNL’s natural death”, SNEA said this was visible during the last few years when the PSU was denied 4G spectrum, predatory pricing of Reliance Jio Infocomm was permitted by the regulator and not issuing letter of comfort to BSNL for availing of bank loans.
There was no capital infusion from its owner (government), while not filling directors’ posts and side-lining HR issues to demoralise and create unrest among the employees among others point to this fact.
BSNL, which is passing through the toughest time, is getting tremendous support from customers and general public. The services are being maintained following a strong support of vendors and contract workers among others, it said.
“There was a perception that BSNL will collapse in few months. But the employees, especially our executives, maintained the network by spending huge amounts from their pockets. Some of the executives maintaining transmission network spent more than ₹1 lakh to ₹2 lakh,” it added.