Centre weakening BSNL, alleges Vaiko

There are 1,74,000 employees serving in BSNL and thousands of contract workers associated with it, the entire human resource affiliated with BSNL is suffering due to pro corporate policies adopted by the Union government. Salaries are delayed and payments are not made on time and action by the telecom ministry looks frivolous, Vaiko said in the statement. Salaries for the month of February are still not paid and this exposes the Modi-led BJP government, Vaiko alleged.

At a time when the other countries are fully equipped with advanced technology the Union government has made the public sector BSNL suffer at the hands of bureaucracy. The Modi-led government has been anti-labourer and this had adversely affected the growth of BSNL, Vaiko said. There are planned efforts to downsize staff strength, but no new technology has been introduced to the public telephone company, Vaiko alleged.

“The BSNL employee unions have been threatening to go on strike seeking pay revision and 4G spectrum allocation to the national telecom operator, but the demands are yet to be met with,” V Sathiabalan, former member, telecom advisory committee said. It may be noted that the state Congress committee president KS Alagiri raised the issue recently.