Tiruchy: The National Federation of Telecom Employees have appealed to the Union Government to again categorically declare all the 2.5 lakh BSNL (public sector telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) employees as ‘Government servants’, said Federation’s national vice-president C K Mathivanan.
He told newsmen at Tiruchy on Tuesday that once the telecom staff were declared as BSNL employees, the consequence was that for the last nine nine years, they have been denied bonus, pay hike and other benefits.
He disputed the Government’s claim that BSNL did not earn profits and said this was because of the Central government’s policy decision.
He said that there were 66,000 telecom towers of the BSNL across the country and government was attempting to privatise these towers. If the Government went ahead with that plan, the federation would launch a nationwide agitation, warned Mr Mathivanan.
He also took strong exception to PM Narendra Modi for allegedly acting as a 'brand ambassador' for the private Jio network, but would not do such a thing for BSNL.
Mr Mathivanan said once there were 114 employees per 1,000 telephones and now it has come down to six staff per 1,000 telephones. Due to this skewed ratio, the services of BSNL have been severely affected of late, he added.
