People's Democracy

The Issues Involved

1) THE government must honour its commitments with regard to reimbursement of licence fee, payment of ADC to BSNL and also provide the company liberal subsidies from the universal service obligation fund.

2) The unjustified notional loan amount forcibly taken from the BSNL must be refunded to it.

3) BWA spectrum charges of about Rs 8,000 crore must be refunded; BSNL must be allowed to return 3G spectrum in states where it is not required and the amount must be refunded. All commitments on licence fee reimbursement etc must be honoured.  

4) There must be immediate procurement of mobile equipments, broadband modems, cables, telephone instruments etc. so that more connections could be given and services improved.

5) There must be immediate settlement of the issue of absorbing or repatriating the ITS officers on deputation, numbering about 1400, --- an issue which is pending for the last 11 years since the formation of the BSNL. As these ITS officers, who are in the top management of the company, are on deputation, this has had a very adverse effect on the company’s efficiency and services.

6) There must be immediate payment of bonus, which has so far been denied to the workers on flimsy grounds.

7) While government employees and PSU employees were granted 78.2 per cent industrial dearness allowance fixation, the same has been denied to the BSNL workers. This must be granted.

8) The withdrawn or frozen facilities like medical allowance, LTC, encashment of leave etc, must be restored or defreezed.

9) The plan to retrench one lakh workers through VRS must be scrapped altogether.