People's Democracy

‘BSNL Existence Under Threat’

Yechury Seeks PM Intervention

The following is the text of the letter written by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and MP Sitaram Yechury to prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh regarding countrywide protest actions by BSNL executives and workers from from June 25 to 29, 2007.

I AM writing to you upon hearing the news that executives and workers of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) have announced countrywide protest actions from June 25 to 29, 2007. These actions are directed at highlighting the fact that the BSNL is being neglected by the government and deliberately being allowed to slide into grave vulnerability, threatening its very existence.

You yourself were present in the Rajya Sabha on August 24, 2006, when the then minister for communications displayed uncalled for belligerence in response to my query whether the government was allowing the BSNL to stagnate in favour of private corporates and operators in the field. I had subsequently sent the concerned minister all the information which substantiates our apprehension. Needless to add no substantive reply has been received.

The BSNL is today facing an extremely critical situation and appears to have reached a point of complete saturation in mobile telephony sector. Nearly a year ago tenders for the purchase of 45.5 million GSM lines were approved. Orders however could not be placed due to some legal proceedings fallowing a case filed by Motorola. This case has now been withdrawn by Motorola two months ago. However no purchase orders have been placed so far. This intervening period of time has been fully utilised by private operators to expand their customer base and enlarge their market share.

The premier State-owned BSNL has now been relegated to the third position from the earlier second in the GSM sector. Hutchison Essar (HEL) in which UK based Company, Vodafone, has recently acquired majority stake, has surpassed BSNL, by recording a growth of 5.4 per cent in its subscriber base, during May 2007 with the addition of 1.5 million lines, compared with catastrophic and incredibly low figure of just 0.24 million by BSNL, during the same period. If Industry Association, representing all GSM operators, is to be believed, and there is no reason to disbelieve them, HEL has over 29.2 million subscribers and a market share of 22.36 per cent in the GSM space as of May 2007 against 27.9 million and 21.43 per cent respectively for BSNL. Further, BSNL is now displaced to 4th position, as Cellular Operator, in terms of combined growth of (CDMA+GSM) with Bharati Airtel (40.7 million user base), Reliance Communications (30.5 million user base) and HEL (29.2 million user bases) occupying 1st, 2nd, 3rd positions respectively. We really don’t know whether these threatening developments having a deadly impact on the survival of BSNL are being closely monitored or not.

I am sure you will agree that this is not a healthy situation. Public sector units cannot be deliberately allowed to degenerate while helping the private sector to grow. A healthy competition between the two is understandable but deliberately creating conditions for the development of the private sector at the expense of the public sector is simply unacceptable.

I am urging you to urgently intervene and initially protect the public sector in the strategic telecom sector and subsequently to strengthen it given the vital importance of this sector to our country’s economy and security.

Hoping that you will do the needful. (INN)