BSNL’s 1000 Mobile Towers Not Working Due To Pending Bills; Employees Knock Supreme Court’s Door

By Mohul Ghosh Last updated Jul 11, 2019

BSNL has once again failed to sort out their financial issues, and this has resulted in the non-functional mobile tower.

This is a dire situation because non-functioning mobile towers translate to poor network, and BSNL customers are getting directly impacted.

Meanwhile, fed up with delayed salaries and uncertainty looming ahead, BSNL employees have reached the Supreme Court for help.

What will be the future of BSNL employees?

1000 Mobile Towers Of BSNL Are Not Working

Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has informed the Parliament that due to non-payment of electricity bills, 1000 mobile towers, and 500 telephone exchanges run by BSNL are not functioning.

This was informed after questions were raised regarding BSNL’s revival plan.

The Minister said, “Action has already been initiated by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and a comprehensive revival plan for BSNL and MTNL is under preparation,”

While 1083 mobile towers are shut down due to non-payment of electricity bills, 258 mobile towers are not working due to non-payment of dues to the land-owners.

The Minister informed the nation that BSNL has been incurring non-stop losses since 2009-10.

BSNL Employees Reach Supreme Court For Help

Meanwhile pending salaries and uncertainty over their future with conflicting reports over VRS, pension and their jobs, BSNL employees have reached the Supreme Court, and sought help from the judiciary.

2000 employees from BSNL’s Chennai division have grouped themselves under a group called ‘National Federation of Telecom Employees’, and have filed a petition to ‘revive’ BSNL and make it profitable.

While hearing the petition, Supreme Court bench of Justices SA Bobde and BR Gavai have directed the lawyers to contact High Court.

More than 6000 contract employees in Kerala have been fired from the work, and the BSNL employees all over the country are worried over their future.

In their petition, the BSNL employees have blamed the management for this situation.

The petition reads, “It also has a bad experience in getting the government approvals on time when it tried to expand the business or compete with other telecom companies. BSNL was about to be the first 4G provider in India but it wasn’t allowed by the Indian government.”

The employees who are about to retire, and have 3-5 years remaining are against the compulsory VRS scheme proposed by the Govt., as they feel that their pension benefits will be stripped away.

And they have some logic as well.

We will keep you updated, as more details come in.