In
a move to revive the cash-strapped State-run Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd
(MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), the Government is likely to
announce Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) for their employees soon. Those
employees who are willing to avail such benefits must come under an eligibility
criteria in which the beneficiary must have completed 31 years of total service
or must have attained an age of 55 years in the organisation.
“The
long-pending demand has been in Department of Telecom (DoT) for long time now.
During the previous Government regime, the representatives of both MTNL and
BSNL had submitted their request to avail the VRS benefits. At present, keeping
the Government’s revival mode in view for these two State-owned telcos, the DoT
is examining such proposal minutely. I think the VRS is a viable option to cut
costs for which we are planning a favourable VRS plan for their employees
soon,” a Government functionary involved in the process told The Pioneer on
Tuesday.
When
asked about the criteria of the scheme, he added, “We are not sure about the
age cap or number of years in service which is yet to be fixed by the
Government, but we expect the age criteria would be either completion of 31
years of total service or attaining the age of 55 years in the service. It is
still in the works and it will be considered soon in consultation with a select
panel in the Government.”
In
a bid to generate good revenue and set off losses, MTNL and BSNL have prepared
the VRS for around 1.15 lakh employees -15,000 for MTNL and 1 lakh for BSNL -
which may cost the Government around Rs24,000 crore only. Besides, it has
already taken slew of other measures to cut costs.
When
contacted on this issue, a senior MTNL official said, “We have prepared a VRS
for our employees, aimed at reducing its workforce by around 15,000 at present.
As for BSNL, around 1 lakh out of total 3 lakh employees will be benefitted in
the scheme. Though the estimated Government expenditure likely to be incurred
on VRS, MTNL will reduce pressure on its huge wage and salary pay-out per
annum”, he said.
MTNL
is hopeful that the Government will consider it as soon as possible. “The
Government has to spend only Rs23, 600 crore - Rs3,600 crore for MTNL and
Rs20,000 crore for BSNL for this scheme. We expect that there is revival plan
for the MTNL in few months as the Government is taking all possible measures
for these two telcos in particular,” he added.
When
asked about the Government’s concern that it is facing huge fund crunch in
almost all departments, the MTNL official said, “The Government is earning huge
money on auctions and other means. So, I do not think mere spending Rs24,000
crore on VRS will be problem for the concerned ministry. MTNL has alone given Rs60,000
crore to the Government from its funds through licence, taxes, dividends and
other forms. So the scheme will help Government revival and cutting costs as
well.”
The
VRS move of the Government has been welcomed by the MTNL, but it has been
opposed by BSNL staff association for long. “We welcome the Government’s move,
but BSNL employees are not happy because they have huge number of staff and
they oppose the staff cut, fearing a job loss. They feel that the VRS would not
benefit them much in some way or the other,” the official said.
The
debate on saving state-run BSNL and MTNL has been going on for the past several
years by merging them together to synergise operations, is one approach amongst
many.
Recently,
the Union Cabinet has approved hiving off BSNL’s tower assets into a separate
company in order to provide huge financial relief to State-run telecom
companies. The Government has offered Rs6,27.20 crore as compensation to BSNL
and its metro counterpart MTNL for surrendering CDMA spectrum that was auctioned
in March this year.
The
Cabinet green signal to the proposals is set to alleviate financial situations
of the two public sector units that had posted massive losses in the previous
financial year. BSNL’s unaudited loss for the year ended March 2015 stood at
Rs7,265 crore, while MTNL posted a loss of Rs2,893.39 crore.
