The conciliation meeting called by the Chief Labour Commissioner Delhi to discuss the 15th December Strike issues which was scheduled to be held on 1st March 2012 has been postponed as per information received from the CLC. The next date will be intimated later.

< a href=”http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-info-tech/article2943782.ece?textsize=large&test=1&#8243; title=”Large Text Size” >T+</a> · <a href=”http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-info-tech/article2943782.ece?textsize=small&test=2&#8243; title=”Small Text Size” I am reproducing an article in Business Line for information

Kerala tops in wire connection; Congratulations to BSNL

 At a time when mobile phones have become the preferred mode of communication, there is still one bastion for fixed-line telephones. Kerala with 32 lakh fixed-line subscribers tops the list, ahead of metros and bigger States such as Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The major beneficiary of this is the State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) as Kerala accounts for nearly 15 per cent of its fixed-line subscribers.

According to the figures available with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Kerala had 30.78 lakh BSNL connections as on January 31, leaving behind States such as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Compared to other States, Dr P.T. Mathew (Principal General Manager, Kochi) said, most of cables laid all over Kerala are by BSNL; the company has made 75 per cent of the coverage here. This has enhanced the quality of service compared to other operators. Another reason he cited for the demand is the quality of speech on landlines compared to mobile phones. This has benefited senior citizens.

Demands on the humble land phone have grown after the advent of the IT revolution. As optical fibre has enabled access to data and broadband connectivity to every home, the profile of the land phone has changed in Kerala. This was mainly spurred by the high literacy rate in the State. With the State having the highest number of BSNL landline connections, where else would the customer look for a broadband connection.

Even spread

While private players are more entrenched in the cities, BSNL landlines have a significant presence across the State — in the rural pockets, towns and cities. And with high literacy being a universal feature across the state, there is strong demand for broadband connectivity in both towns and villages.

Dr Mathew said that BSNL has a broadband penetration of around 18 per cent across Kerala. Efforts are under way to enhance this to 25 per cent shortly. But what is fascinating about the Kerala story is that its broadband connectivity is not concentrated at the metros and large cities alone, but has spread out to the countryside as well.

The company is trying to provide more broadband connections, as the State had a 5.5-lakh subscriber base as on January 31.

The company is planning to add 50,000 more connections in the next fiscal. In its efforts to increase broadband connectivity, BSNL is in the process of laying “fibre to home” which would enable the subscriber to receive voice services as well as IPTV in high bandwidth. The target is to provide 15,000 connections in the next fiscal.

Mobile segment

On the mobile segment, he said the number portability has evoked good response in Kerala, enabling BSNL to add around 3.5 lakh customers from private operators. The mobile-phone subscriber base had touched 69 lakh as on January 31. The aim is to add another 15 lakh by next fiscal, he adde

(This article was published in the Business Line print edition dated February 29, 2012)

The next  conciliation meeting on the issues raised in the 15th December strike will be held at 1100 hours on 1st March 2012 by the Chief Labour Commissioner at Shram Shakti Bhawan New Delhi. All the unions that gave strike notice will be participating in the meeting. BSNL management and DOT representatives will also participate.

The Meeting of the National Council saw the Staff Side in full preparation for getting the demands of the workers achieved at the earliest. On all the demands, there was constructive discussion with the staff side raising all relevant points in support of their demands. The official side was also positive, including the Chairman.

The Staff Side team consisted of myself as Leader Staff Side, P.Abhimanyu, Secretary, Staff Side, P.Asokababu, R.Venkataraman, V.Subburaman, Suresh Kumar, J.Sampat Rao, P.Andiappan, B.S.Raghuvansi, A.R. Safi, R.Raveendran, B.R.Jakhatia and Vijendra Singh. Com.R.K.Kohli could not attend due to a fracture. Since the staff side met yesterday and discussed all the issues internally, there was full co-ordination in presenting the issues with full records and documents.

My hearty congratulations to the staff side team. Everybody gave their best in presenting the cases.

The National Council of the BSNL was held today, 27th February 2012 under the chairmanship of A.N.Rai Director (HR). The staff side was very critical about the delay in holding the meeting. It was assured by the management that the meetings will be held in time in future and the next meeting is decided to be held on 24th May or in that week.

One of the important issues discussed was about the regularisation of the 3361 and odd casual labours who are engaged and working in DOT and BSNL for the last 10 to 15 years or more. After much discussion, the official side has agreed to prepare a scheme for the regularisation. It is a great advance in this matter. The non-implementation of the minimum wage and social security measures, EPF and ESI were focussed in my initial remarks as the leader of staff side and demanded full implementation.

There were detailed discussion on the improvement on NEPP, Telecom Factory issues, SC/ST reservation, relaxation in examinations ( modification of RRs), Pension Scheme for the BSNL recruited employees etc.  A note on the discussions will be put in the union website.

At last the meeting of the National Council of BSNL will be held tomorrow, 27th february 2012. It is almost after 8 months the present meeting is being held. The delay was due to the casual attitude of the management despite several efforts of the Union to get the meeting held. Important issues like Regularisation of Casual labour/TSM, SC/ST Reservation and connected issues, Promotional Examinations, NEPP issues etc. are there in the agenda.

The Staff Side of the National Council met today and discussed the items for discussion in the Council and planned our strategy.

BSNLEU demanded for  change of designations of the non-executives in BSNL a few years back and after the issue was discussed in the National Council, a committee was formed with the management and union representatives. The committee could not finalise its recommendations since the management side wanted time to finalize the designations of the executives so that there will be no conflict. Now, on the demand of the staff side, a new committee has been formed and the first meeting was held today, 23rd February. The committee has, as a preliminary step, suggested certain designations for the four main streams viz. RM/Group D, Telecom Mechanic, Sr.TOA and TTA.  (The details of the suggestions etc. will be put in the website of BSNLEU). This will be discussed  in the next meeting.

Why we have  demanded for change of designations?  The present designations have not been prepared and decided in a systematic way. The Telecom was growing in a fast way and new technologies and services required officials to deal with them. So new cadres were created one after another. New names were given to these cadres. By the time BSNL was formed, there were more than 100 cadres, with different names, some of them doing similar work also. Promotions required further designations. Of course certain cadres were merged in the meanwhile, but that also did not help much. For the same cadre itself different names were used in different parts of the country. The number of cadres have become too much and many of the jobs entrusted to them have been discontinued or became redundant.

The group C and D officials were never given good designations, as the top-level officers/management wanted to show the differences between them and the lower paid officials. The times have now changed. In the private sector dealing with public, better and good sounding designations are provided, which helps in dealing with the public. In DOT/BSNL, the designations look very much old-fashioned and downgrading. In this competitive field, the change of designations is a must.

We have told the management to reduce the number of cadres and provide with good designations. It is important for motivation and self-respect to the employees as also will benefit the company. We hope that better designations will  be finalised by the committee according to the aspiration of the workers.

It seems that the UPA-II Government is moving towards 100% FDI in telecom sector. The auction for 2G spectrum is expected shortly consequent to the cancellation of the illegal 122 licences  by the Supreme Court. Many of the affected companies, including Telenor (Norway based company) are reported to file petition against the SC judgement and have approached the government for the refund of the spectrum charges with interest. The government is under pressure to favour the affected companies. In such a situation, the government is sure to bail out these companies as has been doing earlier.

The present move to allow fully foreign owned companies to bid for the oncoming 2G auction, in reality, will mean 100% FDI in telecom. Although the present FDI cap in telecom is 74%, in practice it is much more than that. It is not that the government is not aware of the violation of the FDI cap, but it is being silently allowed. If the fully foreign-owned companies are allowed to bid in the 2G auction, it will be 100% FDI. This needs to be strongly protested.