Nagpur: With the fast paced communication technology being delivered from private players, the government telecom operators BSNL and MTNL appears to have been gasping for breath for quite some time now. Despite all out efforts to make it firm and steady, the two so called giant PSUs fail to consolidate its postions in the hyper competitive market.
Now the latest development from the government quarters is that both the entities have significantly failed to pay staff salaries for the month of July. Confirming the development BSNL Chairman and Managing Director P K Purwar said that employees will get the July salary on August 5. However the union leader said that no information has been shared by the management about the disbursal of the salary.
Talking to mediapersons, All India Unions and Associations of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (AUAB) Convenor P Abhimanyu said, “Salary for the month of July has not come. There is also no information when will it be credited.”
When few scribes contacted the BSNL CMD, he said that employees will get the salary on August 5.
“Funds are being arranged through internal accruals,” Purwar said.
BSNL has 1.76 lakh employees across India while MTNL has around 22,000 employees.
Salary of employees is credited to their accounts on the last date of every month. However, this is for the second time the two companies have defaulted on payment of salaries this year and for the first time after the new government took charge.
The two PSUs had delayed payment of salaries for February until mid-March due to a financial crisis. BSNL had then said that it used its internal accruals to clear the pending salaries.
Total monthly salary expenses of BSNL are in the range of Rs 750-850 crore while that of MTNL are around Rs 160 crore.
MTNL Human Resource and Enterprise Business Director Sunil Kumar said that the company is in the process collecting some dues after which the salary will be paid on a priority basis very soon. Kumar holds additional charge of MTNL CMD.
