The fate of BSNL is still undecided, and there are various statements and observations coming from every side over this issue.
Even as we speak, BSNL employees haven’t received their salary since last two months, however, at the same time, Govt. is all set to spend Rs 16,000 crore for hiking Central Govt. employees’ allowances.
Now, Union Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has admitted that India needs BSNL, and shutting it down wont work.
At the same time, BSNL MD has assured that every BSNL employee will receive their salaries by Diwali.
Note here, that no official communication has been sent to the BSNL employees over this salary confirmation.
Union Minister: India Needs BSNL
During an event recently, Union Telecom and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad admitted that BSNL in strategic interest of the nation, and thus, India needs it.
Indirectly, he revealed that shutting it down won’t work.
This is his exact statement: “BSNL is in strategic interest of the nation. Whenever there is flood, cyclones, BSNL is the first one to offer services for free. 75 per cent of their revenues goes into salary of employees while others manage it in 5-10 per cent. There are legacy issues which we are looking in to,”
However, in the same statement, we can also observe that he is worried over the salary expenses incurred for running BSNL: While private companies are spending 5-10% over salary expenses, BSNL is spending 75% of their revenues.
He said that there are ‘legacy issues’, and the Govt. is working to resolve them.
This clearly gives us a message that shutting down BSNL won’t work as of now.
We have already reported how Govt officials are worried over national security issues related with BSNL’s shutting down: As of now, all Ministers, and Military personals use BSNL, and if its closed, then they will have to use private telecom operators.
And this, the issue of national security is looming large.
More details are awaited.
BSNL Employees Will Get Salary By Diwali?
In an interview, BSNL’s new CMD Pravin Kumar Purvar has assured that every BSNL employee will receive their salaries by Diwali.
He said, “We will give salaries to the employees before Diwali from our own resources on accruals. We generate Rs 1,600 crore a month revenues from services.”
BSNL is not able to give salary because they don’t have money right now: Rs 74,000 rescue package has been rejected by the Finance Ministry, and they are keen on shutting down the state run telecom provider.
CMD Pravin Kumar also suggested that BSNL can aim for monetising content to generate additional source of revenues.
We will keep you updated, as more details come in.
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