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PMO advises DoT to help BSNL with wage bill till June
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IANS | 22 Mar, 2019
The Prime Ministers' Office on Friday took stock of the telecom sector's
financial position, including two ailing PSUS, and is learnt to have
asked Department of Telecom to support BSNL, currently going through a
huge financial crisis leading to salary default, till a new government
takes over in June.
The time has been sought as the PSU may find
it hard to get the revenues up and going for meeting a huge monthly wage
bill of Rs 1,200 crore, sources said.
Sources said with polls
around, the government does not want 1.76 lakh employees should face any
salary issues. The BSNL's VRS scheme amounting to Rs 6,535 crore will
be taken up by the new goverment. The Prime Ministers's Office,
according to highly placed sources, has asked DoT to support and take
care of BSNL's wage bill in whatever ways till July.
Last month
DoT had helped BSNL to meet its salary bill after the state-run operator
defaulted on salary in 19 years of its existence.
BSNL has a net
loss of Rs 8,000 crore and its revenues have declined to around Rs
27,000 crore, underlining the tough times ahead in a market of extremely
low data tariffs and free voice calls.
The PSU is also
struggling as it does not have LTE 4G servcies for lack of spectrum and
now DoT has referred the matter of its spectrum proposal to TRAI for
consultation as PSUs don't bid for auction to get spectrum.
BSNL's
wage bill is 70 per cent of its revenues and with dwindling service
incomes, it is extremely difficult for the ex-DOT servce arm to keep
floating.
The last month salary was paid by the PSU on March 15
to all, after it had paid in tranches to some circles and lower level
staff.
Earlier this month the government gave BSNL a letter of
comfort for raising working capital loans of Rs 3,500 crore for paying
electricity bills and other netowrk upkeep expenses such as towers.
BSNL's wage bill increases annually by 8 per cent and its revenues are stagnant.
The
PMO's similar advice was on MTNL wage issues as well. MTNL has a
monthly wage bill of Rs 200 crore stemming from its 23,000 employees.
The DoT has been paying it since November under some service heads of
previous payments.
In fiscal 2019, BSNL losses are expected to be
over Rs 12,000 crore though in March, the financial position could be
slightly better with realisation of billing from the enterprise
businesses than in February, according to DoT sources, though it could
not be ascertained since the fiscal is yet to end.
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