Coms. V.A.N.Namboodiri, President, P.Abhimanyu, General Secretary and Swapan Chakraborty, AGS, BSNLEU met Shri A.N.Rai, CMD BSNL and congratulated him on his new assignment.
They also discussed the various issues of the BSNL workers in detail.These included the victimisation of workers in Jamshedpur, Special Casual leave for the Central Secretariat Meeting etc. A detailed note will be published in the BSNLEU Website.
In addition, the union leaders also stated that the management should put pressure on the DOT for issuing early orders on the 78.2% IDA Merger for Pensioners. They also demanded that the Medical Allowance without voucher be restored at least for the pensioners considering the extreme difficulties being faced them for medical treatment.
VAN Namboodiri's Blog 
Its high time to introspect BSNL’s downfall, which we are unable to stop even after many measures. The main reason is nothing but its huge legacy work force with 50+ avg. age. How we can serve customers with this outdated staff ? When a company like AIRTEL is generating 50k cr+ revenue with just 15K staff, shall we require 2.5 lakh staff that too from copper wired era ? The reality situation in rural also becoming gloomy for BSNL. Nobody interested to take LL or mobile sim from BSNL sighting poor QOS. I have personally seen staff, who just come and chitchat and go for evening walks in office premises. If present scenario continues, forget about next pay revision even basic pay itself is difficult. The only solution is revert back to DOT or remove 2 lakh staff with min. CRS benefits.
You have only looked on one side. It is not the number of non-executive employees which is the reason for the present unenviable position of BSNL. It was with these same non-executives that the company made revenue of more than Rs. 40,000 crore per year and profits ranging from Rs. 7,000 crore to Rs. 10,000 crore for about eight years since formation of BSNL. The real reason for the downfall is the cancellation of the tenders for GSM equipment in 2006-07. First the tender for 45 million was cancelled. Then again the tender for 95 million was cancelled followed by the cancellation of 5 million. If the equipment were purchased when there was huge demand for BSNL connections, the situation would have been entirely different and even BSNL should have been the biggest telecom company. You have to remember that BSNL was given licence to provide mobile connection only in 2002, while the private companies were granted the same 6-7 years back. BSNL was in the fifth position in mobiles when it started mobile service. But within four years it reached the second position only next to Airtel. If the tenders were allowed and equipment purchased, BSNL could well have reached the first position. In the Broadband and landline, BSNL is still the number one. You have to remember that the profits were made when there were much more non-executive employees. About 1,30,000 non-executive employees have since retired. Only about 10,000 non-executives have been recruited during the period mainly TTAs. About the same number of executives also have been recruited. It can thus be seen that it is not the number of employees that is the reason for the downfall. The salary bill of the non-executives have come down after each and every year. Even the total bill of the entire staff in BSNL has not increased for the last four years. In the case of non-executives, the salary bill has come down because of the huge retirement. The % of salary has increased only because of the decrease in revenue from Rs. 40,000 to Rs. 26,000 or so. If the revenue has increased as was earlier, the % of salary would have come down. The phobia of salary bill is being raised by the government and the management to conceal their inability to administer or mischievous plan to weaken the company. The MTNL has implemented VRS thrice and reduced its staff to almost one-third. What has happened? Has efficiency increased or profit increased? The salary bill of MTNL is more than 100% of its revenue. We have to learn lesson from the experience of others.
What we require is not reduction of staff, but maximum utilisation of the staff. The management has to make plans to increase the connections, purchase necessary equipments, bring in a committed management and close co-ordination between the management and the staff for the improvement of services and development. How in Kerala, still the profit is increasing?
One more word about your last sentence. 1,30,000 staff has retired and the service has gone down. What about 2,00,000 goes away? According to you MTNL should have improved, because maximum number have taken VRS. But why id declined? Think once again.
Sir,,In the years 2000-2006, the number of operators and their reachability is minimum. Price are also on peak side. So due to limited options people are used to accept our service. Its not that our QOS is high at that time.Its simply monopoly. Even with outsourcing methodology we would have captured more market at those times. Coming to MTNL, even now the customers are crying for the better service. Employees wil sight lack of materials as a reason and management ll tell lack of funds. This is like a dead lock. The entry of docomo and others has given a flexibility for customers to choose better service leading to chrunk in BSNL/MTNL subscribers. But still our management/staff are not bothering about this. To sustain in this market either we have to withdraw by reverting to DOT or we have to compete by following private telcos model.
Dear Comrade, During 2000-2006 BSNL was no monopoly. Many private companies have already been given licence in 1995-96 and they were providing services. It was BSNL and MTNL which was not given licence for providing mobile. All these private companies were very much in the ring during 2000-2006 and it is by beating them one after another, that BSNL rose to the second position from 5th position. As stated earlier, BSNL would have reached the first position in mobiles also had the 45 million tender for GSMs has not been cancelled and the mobile equipment purchased. From 1995-96, the public had the choice to select the operators, whether DOT,MTNL or private companies and the choice for BSNL after 2000.
When private operators are serving customers with young faces, we are making them stand in queues by our senior citizens, who struggles to make data entry on computer…
That is why we BSNLEU has demanded for recruitment.
Recruitment is required..But what about present staff??Where we can accommodate our 55 years executive/ non executive?? For ERP template development or CSC ?? Anyway outdoor they cant do..In this digital telecom world will they suit for any job ??
I have already given my reply to another similar comment, so that I am not going in to details. Please see the same.
It is the same 55-60 or 45-50 aged people who have made profit for the company during the period 2000 to 2007. If age alone is to be considered then the services and development should have been better with about 1,30,000 old people retired and more than 20,000 new officials recruited. But it did not happen? Why? Because there are many other matters connected with the development of the company like procurement of equipment, better management, policy decisions etc. For any institution, new and fresh blood is required. That is why in all government establishments, PSUs and even in private new recruitment are taking place. In the banks 35,000 were given VRSto improve the services. But within 2-3 years the service worsened and they had no other choice but to recruit and that too about 72,000. Most of the companies who resorted to VRS had to change their policy on recruitment. Why BSNL has failed in implementing the targets given to it by the government in the various projects? Why BSNL could not implement its own targets? Everybody has to ponder and find out methods to improve BSNL, instead of harping on the number of employees and their wages.
We can serve still better with Young faces, but the thing now we have to cultivate is ” work with smile” and handle the situation with down to earth behavior and one window work should be done. I think most of our employees are not interested (not in state) to learn and all these software ERP, CRM ,SAP………. (All are linked with one another) Multiple software is a easy process of work but its having own difficulties because of wrong feedback given to them and with the design it could still simple. Regarding the outdoor work can be simplified with proper co-ordination of both employees and public.
Training and Re-training is an important factor. Technology is continuously changing and improving. The employees should be trained for the new situation. BUT the BSNL management utterly failed in this. For the last five-six decades a main demand of the unions has been training and retraining. But it did not happen. If the training process is not implemented continuously the employee recruited now also will face a kind of stagnation with the later recruits treating them as below par. This should not happen now, this should not happen later.
HUGE INVESTMENT TO PROJECT SHIKHAR IS A WASTE. WE CAN STILL DO THINGS BETTER IF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE FAVORING PRIVATE OPERATORS IS NOT THERE. THOSE IN TOP POSITION SHOULD INTERACT WITH BOTTOM LEVEL TO GIVE THEM OPPORTUNITY TO DO BETTER. SALARY BILL IS ONLY CREATION BY VESTED INTEREST. IT IS THE WORK FORCE WHO SHOULD BE DEVELOPED TO WORK IN CORPORATE CULTURE. OUR COMMITMENT TO RURAL SERVICES TO BE COMPENSATED BY THE GOVERNMENT PROPERLY. AS RIGHTLY POINTED OUT WE ARE NOT GIVEN LEVEL PLAY.