SHILLONG: BSNL employees of NE-I Telecom Circle along with their counterparts in the rest of the country will observe a two-day strike on April 21-22 demanding “revival of BSNL” as part of its “Save BSNL Save India” campaign.
In a statement issued here, Gopal Das, Convener, Forum of BSNL Unions & Associations, NE-I Circle, CTO Complex, said that despite the concerns expressed by the BSNL employees, the company has become the victim of Government policies after the admission of Ravi Shankar Prasad as the Union Minister for Communications.
The company supposedly earned crores of rupees as profit till 2008-09 with the highest being Rs. 10,183 crore in 2004-05. As per Ravi Shankar Prasad, “The way these two PSUs (BSNL and MTNL) have been ill-treated in the last seven years is something to be seen to be believed”.
Anupam Srivastava, CMD of BSNL, further added, “Till 2005, BSNL was the top-most telecom operator. We lost the race after that as our tenders for ‘Capacity Addition’ could not succeed and we were deprived of equipments for adding new customers”.
Currently, BSNL suffers from lack of funds for new equipments.
The reserve funds amounting to more than Rs. 40,000 crore were allegedly taken away by the Central Government on various pleas and in spite of a promise to refund around Rs. 10,000 crore as early as 2010, it has not been met till date.
