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Minister meets FM over MTNL wage bill
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SME Times News Bureau | 12 Mar, 2019
Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha on Tuesday met Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley and is understood to have sought funds amounting to over Rs
1,000 crore for salary payments to cash-strapped MTNL till June this
year.
Sinha was accompanied by telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan and MTNL chairman and MD Praveen Kumar Purwar to the meeting.
Sinha,
Sundararajan and Purwar declined to comment on the purpose of their
meeting. However, MTNL sources said the meeting took up the sector's
concerns.
MTNL share price is down 2.51 per cent at Rs 13.60. The
PSU is under intense pressure over high comeptition, lack of funds and
revenues. Its networth has turned negative. MTNL operates in Delhi and
Mumbai.
Sources said MTNL is not in a position to pay salaries
any further. The Department of Telecom has been paying the salaries
amounting to around Rs 200 crore a month since November last year.
The
funds sought from the Finance Ministry would cover MTNL's wage bill
till June or completion of polls. MTNL, which operates only in Delhi and
Mumbai and expects that these measures will help the company is doing
away with debt to the tune of around Rs 19,000 crore. The revenue to
wage ratio in case of MTNL has swelled to 90 per cent.
In January, MTNL had sought Rs 500 crore from DoT to pay January salary by raising pending dues for the period 2000-13.
MTNL
has sought financial support, 4G spectrum and approvals for asset sales
as part of its revival plan. It has pleaded for a refund of interest
that it paid for broadband wireless access spectrum which it had
returned to the government.
DoT had returned MTNL's loans taken for the purpose on the principal amount while withholding the interests.
The
PSU has also sought permission to monetise their land assets as well as
the voluntary retirement scheme for employees on the Gujarat model
costing Rs 2,120 crore.
MTNL's December-quarter loss widened to
Rs 832.26 crore. Total income of the telecom PSU stood at Rs 692.42
crore, 18.7 per cent lower than Rs 852.64 crore notched in the
corresponding period of the previous year.
Total expenses climbed to Rs 1,524.6 crore as against Rs 1,491.6 crore in the year-ago quarter.
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