The Telecom Factories  are the centres for manufacture of telecom equipments and infrastructure for the last so many decades. They were earlier called as P&T Workshops. The first P&T Workshop was started  in Alipore (Calcutta) in 1855 to manufacture  telegraph equipments.  The second  P&T Workshop was started at Bombay in 1943 by taking over Bombay Telephone Company, a private company, which was formed in 1935. Jabalpur P&T Work shop was started almost at the same time, at  the time of Second World War,  to ensure the manufacture of telecom equipments, in case Calcutta Workshop is captured by Japan, which was fast-moving towards India. In 1968, the name of P&T Workshop was changed in to Telecom Factory. The other four factories, Gopalpur, Kharagpur, Bhilai and Richai were started later.

These P&T Workshops /Telecom Factories used to manufacture all telegraph and telephone equipments including telephone posts, manual / trunk telephone exchanges etc.  required by the P&T Department. After the establishment of Indian Telephone Industries (ITI ), one of the first Public Sector Units (PSU) in the country, the manufacture of boards etc. were shifted gradually and by 1980, the production of trunk board etc. was completely stopped in the factories. The other products continued to be manufactured in the TFs. Due to induction of latest technology in telecom sector, many of these  products became out-dated and those production lines were closed.

At present, DP Box, MDF, Modems,Line Jack Unit, hand telephones, STD Pay Phones, CT Box, Drop Wire Cards etc. are being manufactured. After introduction of mobile phones, production of towers also have started in a big way. Certain parts of Optical fibre, Sim Cards etc. are also manufactured.

The Fifth Pay Commission recommended either closure or privatisation of the Telecom Factories. At that time, All india Telecom Employees Union (Namboodiri), took up the matter with the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Communications headed by Shri Somnath Chatterjee and presented our view-point that the factories should not be closed but should be modernised and improved. The Standing Committee kindly accepted our suggestions and  also recommended modernisation. Some modernisation was done, but much more is to be done.

After formation of BSNL, there was a move to close down Kharagpur Factory. As per the call of BSNLEU local struggle started and after discussion at All India level, the management agreed not to close and started manufacture of towers there.

After BSNLEU got recognition, it has been taking the various issues connected with the development and modernisation of the TFs. On the demand of the staff side in the National Council, a committee was constituted with Shri R.P.Nigam, DDG(TF), Corporate office and Com. V.A.N.Namboodiri, General Secretary, BSNLEU & Secretary, Staff Side to visit all the seven TFs and recommend the required modifications for improvement as also to look the staff amenities. The Committee visited all the Factories along with the concerned CGM Telecom Factory, Officers of the Civil Wing etc. and submitted its recommendations. Some of these were implemented, but some are kept in the close storage by the management. After the visit of the committee the working conditions were of course improved a lot. But still there are a lot of things to be done. The immediate task is to introduce new projects involving latest technologies and appointing specialised Engineers suited to the requirement.

The workers in the Factories belong to regular workers as well as industrial workers. BSNLEU has been consistently taking with the management to ensure that the industrial workers are also treated as other regular workers. Union has also demanded that the recommendations of the Restructuring committee be implemented in full after discussion with the union. The Union’s demand to name the TF as BSNL Factory was agreed to by the management, but is not so far implemented. The industrial workers were organised in P&T Industrial Workers Union under the legendary leadership of Com. Sisir Bhattacharjee, the senior most leader P&T at present. At the time of formation of BSNL Employees Union in 2001, this union merged with it. Most of the Industrial and Non-industrial workers in these 7 factories are members of the BSNL Employees Union.

I will be posting another write-up later about the specific problems of the workers in the Factories and also how to improve and modernise the Telecom Factories.