70,000 BSNL Employees On Strike – They Ask Why Govt Is Not Allowing 4G Roll Out Across India

In one of the biggest ever employee strike announced by BSNL employees, more than 70,000 employees will strike on November 26th, across India.

The employees are claiming that Govt is not allowing 4G roll out across India, and this is a serious allegation.

How will Govt respond now?

BSNL Employees On Strike

8 major employee unions and associations of BSNL have declared a combined strike against the management and Govt on Nov 26th.

These employee unions are: BSNL Employees Union, National Federation of Telecom Employees, BSNL Mazdoor Sangh, BSNL Officers Association, National Union of BSNL Workers, Telecom Employees Progressive Union, Sanchar Nigam Associations of Telecom Technical Assistants and BSNL Association of Telecom Mechanics.

The strike demands 10-point charter of demands and a 7-point charter of demands of central trade unions.

Govt Not Allowing BSNL’s 4G Rollout?

As per a combined statement issued, it has been alleged that Govt themselves are not allowing a comprehensive roll out of BSNL’s 4G services, and they are not allowing BSNL to provide world class services for their users.

The joint statement said, “The revival of BSNL still remains a distant dream, since the government is not taking sincere steps for the same. Not only that, the government is also creating roadblocks in BSNL”s 4G launching,”

As per the Unions, Govt ordered BSNL to roll out 4G services via system integrator, which is an expensive strategy, and prone to breakdowns.

No other private players were asked to launch 4G services via system integrator, and this shows that BSNL is being intentionally held down by Govt.

The statement said, “This is because the system integrator model is costly and is susceptible to technical glitches, according to the opinion of experts,”

BSNL has floated a tender for 4G services in March, which was later pulled down due to random reasons.

This strike is mainly against this decision by Govt of India to stop BSNL’s 4G services and this is indeed very strange.

Why is Govt helping private telcos, at the expense of BSNL?

More details are awaited.