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even after a continued deemed deputation status for 15 long years. These 1000 Officers belonging to ITS cadre are fully determined not to join BSNL. They have already availed the benefits of sixth Pay Commission along with regular promotions given by the controlling Ministry as deputationists in BSNL, and they have been enjoying all the perks/higher designations in BSNL. But they do not want to belong to BSNL. This small number of officers working on deputation in BSNL, who constitute the senior managerial cadre, want to continue as Govt. Officers and enjoy the benefits of BSNL. But the actual fact is that the senior managerial level in BSNL does not want to belong to BSNL but work in it on deputation as an outsider till their retirement without having any stake in welfare and growth of BSNL, which is jeopardizing the careers and livelihoods of lakhs of employees who had believed the government and even today have the conviction in BSNL. 14. Imposing VRS to 1 Lakh Employees in BSNL is not justified at this juncture. The current Executives strength of BSNL as on 31st March 2016 is about 42,000 and non-executives staff strength is about 1, 70,000. The staff strength of BSNL is going to be reduced to 20% i.e. one fifth of its current strength by the year 2017 on account of superannuation and it shall be further reduced to 30% of its current strength by the year 2018-19. Hence, imposing VRS to one lakh employees in BSNL will over burden the existing employees as well as it will be difficult to main about 34,000 telephones exchanges in the country. Moreover, VRS in no way has helped MTNL viability since it was imposed thrice. 15. Privatization / Disinvestment of BSNL can only help the Government to meet its budgetary deficits because BSNL shall not be allowed to utilize any of the revenue earned by its disinvestment for the growth/ expansion of BSNL. After formation of MTNL a Navaratna Company 44% of its shares have been offloaded in the Market but it has not led to any improvement in performance of MTNL or increase in its Market Share. How will privatization / disinvestment help BSNL in its growth or increase of its market share? Only a motivated workforce, a committed management and faster decision process in finalization of Tenders, procurement of equipment and clearance of associated bottlenecks can help BSNL in its growth and increase of its Market Share. Only a strong and growing BSNL can keep the Telecom Prices in check and will not permit free rein to private operators to form cartels and fleece the Public. But for the PSUs like BSNL the customers would have never got Telecom Services so cheap as of now. 16. Various illogical interests being paid by BSNL to Govt. of India, which is directly affecting the viability of BSNL. BSNL should be exempted from paying building tax, paying excise duty on SIM cards, paying exorbitant electricity bills by applying the logic of low usage of power instead of electricity being charged on the basis of power plant capacity, VTMs revised penalty charges and heavy charges being paid to municipality and panchayat for erecting towers whereas they are not charging anything from electricity companies. 17. Govt. should issue Instructions to all Govt. Departments/Autonomous Bodies where the Govt. of India bears the cost of telephone expenditure for taking the telecom services from BSNL only to support BSNL as it has done in case of National Carrier Air Line. BSNL is operating in a very stiff competitive environment with sharp reduction in tariffs in order to serve the people of the Country as a responsible PSU. BSNL is maintaining the rural network with very low tariff for serving the rural India. In addition to this reimbursement of ADC charges is also withdrawn which has adversely effected the financial position of BSNL. The fixed expenses of the company are also increasing year after year. It is observed that some of the Government Departments/Autonomous Bodies are inclined to switch over to private network for various reasons. The Ministry of Finance has issued instructions to all the Government Departments / Autonomous Bodies for undertaking the air travel by Air India only for both domestic and international travel where the Government of India bears the costs of air passage to support the Air India. 18. In pursuance of New Telecom Policy 1999, the Govt. of India decided to corporatize the service provision functions of DoT. Accordingly Govt. of India decided to transfer the business of providing telecom services in the country presently run and entrusted with the DTS and DTO as was provided earlier by DoT to the newly formed company viz. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited w.e.f. 01.10.2000. The assets and liability of present Department of Telecom Services and Department of Telecom Operations which earlier formed part of DoT were transferred to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited except Sanchar Bhawan and few other buildings but in true sense till date all these assets have not been transferred to BSNL rather DoT TELEWAVE 8 JUNE-2016
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