There seems to be a great slackness on the part of the BSNL management on all activities. It is taking too long a time to take decisions and also implement them. The government machinery, DOT,  was slow, but the PSU, BSNL, is fslower. This has adversely affected not only  the developmental and expansion activities but also the settlement of the issues of the workers.

Have a look at this. The National Council is the forum for the staff side and the management side to discuss and settle important issues of the workers. Despite continued demand by the staff side, the management failed to convene any meeting since the last meeting in August last year. At last it has fixed the meeting for 27th February 2012. But whether the management is prepared to settle the issues focussed in the meeting? We have to wait and see.

The Designation Committee meeting is fixed to be held on 23rd February after a gap of more than one year. There was no difficulty for the management to change the designations of the executives and top management personnel more than once. But when it comes to Non-Executives, there is a negative attitude on the part of the management.

Removing anomalies for the ITS and Executives, management has got a a soft corner. But in the case of non-executives there is no soft corner.

There are many more discriminations, when the issues are concerning non-executives. The management should change its negative stand and must have sincere dialogue and settle the issues amicably. If it does not act, the workers will have no other course but to resort to strong agitational programmes.

A report from Hindu, 15th February on the New Telecom Policy (NTP) is given below. We will study the report and give our comments later. We had given a our comments on the draft NTP earlier, and now after full studying the matter we will publish our comments:

“The government on Wednesday announced the new telecom policy (NTP) allowing operators to hold higher spectrum, pay uniform license fee across services besides permitting liberal merger and acquisition, with a view to provide quality services at affordable prices.

Announcing a part of policy, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal told a press conference that “the prescribed limit on spectrum assigned to a service provider will be 2×8 MHz (paired spectrum) for GSM technology for all service areas other than Delhi and Mumbai where it will be 2×10 MHz (paired spectrum).”

Current prescribed limit is 6.2 MHz of GSM spectrum.

However, players would be free to acquire additional frequency beyond the prescribed limit, in the open market, should there be an auction of spectrum subject to the limits prescribed for merger of licences.

When asked about the impact of new norms announced today on subscribers, he said users should get better services and at affordable rates due to more efficient usage of spectrum.

All spectrum would be delinked from the licence from now, he said, adding that a decision on pricing of spectrum or one-time charge for extra spectrum held by some incumbent operators would be taken later in view of the Supreme Court judgement that cancelled 122 2G licences issued in 2008.

He also announced a uniform licence fee of eight per cent of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) across services and circles as compared to range of 6-8 per cent now. Licence fee is a levy paid by all operators as the annual fee.

On renewal of licenses, Mr. Sibal said the renewal of licence would be done for 10 years.”

Wait at for our comments.

Besides, he also announced a liberal merger and acquisition regime in the sector allowing up to 35 per cent market share for the merged entity while taking note of TRAI’s recommendation to consider market share up to 60 per cent.

He said a decision would be taken soon in this regard.

As per reports, there is every possibility of the private telecom companies whose licences have been cancelled by the Supreme Court to approach the TDSAT for getting compensation including the refund of the licence fee paid by them. They may even try to get compensation for investment.

Norway Company, Telenor, is supported by the Norwegian Government and its emissary has already reached New Delhi to pressurise the government to bail out the company. Communications Minister Kapil Sibal has stated that he will certainly meet the representative of the Norwegian Government.

The business media is also publishing write-ups, editorials etc. in support of these private companies and the need to bail out them. From the past experience there is every chance that the government may bail out them very cleverly. In fact, there is a move by the TRAI also to bail out these companies

In this situation, it is very much necessary that these plans to defeat the essence of the judgment of the Supreme Court should be exposed and defeated.

It is about one week since he Supreme Court has cancelled the 122 licences of the 11 companies which have been illegally granted. About 7 crore subscribers of these 11 companies may like to shift to other service providers in the present situation. The Bharti Airtel etc. have already initiated big advertisement campaign for catching up these subscribers to their companies. What are the plans of BSNL? whether any action plan has been mooted? and if so, what is it?

It is utmost necessary that BSNL should act and act immediately.

The bids for BSNL mobile net work tender was opened on Saturday, 4th February 2012. The Chinese manufacture companies, ZTE and Huawei  are the lowest tenders. The lowest bid is $ 50 ( about Rs. 2500) for a line. The 14.3 million tender will be for about $ 71o million as per the bid.

The earlier tenders for 45 million lines (2007), 93 million lines (2010) and 5.5 million lines (2011) were all cancelled on one or another reason. It has resulted in acute shortage of mobile equipments/lines for BSNL which restricted its expansion crucially and gave a big berth to the private telecom companies like Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Vodafone etc. to increase their expansion and market share.

Let us hope that this tender also does not have the same fate as earlier tenders.The JAC has been putting much pressure for early tender to ensure expansion and it has helped for this tender. Will the government intervene in the last moment on some plea or other again to stop the tender to stop the expansion of BSNL? We have to be careful and watch the developments.  I spoke to Shri R.K.Upadhyay, CMD, BSNL and requested for early further action for finalising the tender and issuing purchase order.

It is very welcome that almost all the unions /associations of non-executives have come together to make the 28^th February strike successful. In a meeting called by me at the D-7 Telegraph Place, the available General Secretaries attended and took important decisions for the success of the strike. The decisions of the meetings are given as circulated by the Convener of the meeting, myself. This unity has to be strengthened so that the issues of the workers can be settled with more strength.

Minutes of the meeting

A meeting of the Non- Executive Unions / Associations available at New Delhi was held at 1100 hours on 3rd February 2012 at D-7, Telegraph Place to discuss about the proposed nationwide strike on 28th February 2012 called by the 11 Central Trade Unions on the important demands of the workers. Com. C.Singh, General Secretary, NFTE, presided. Com.V.A.N.Namboodiri, President, BSNLEU, who convened the meeting, briefed about the decision of the strike by the Central Trade Unions and the necessity of making it a grand success in BSNL. All the General Secretaries / representatives present expressed their views about making the strike a success. After discussion, the following decisions were taken: 1. All the unions present decided to make all out efforts to make the 28th February strike a complete success in BSNL. All other unions, who were not present in the meeting, will be contacted for this effort. 2. One Joint Circular to be issued by all the non-executive unions together after consulting all other unions not present in the meeting. 3. The following demands will also be added in the strike notice in addition to the demands raised by the Central trade Unions: a) Government should provide financial support to BSNL b) No disinvestment / privatisation of BSNL c) No retrenchment 4. Joint massive meetings to be arranged at the following places participated by the leaders of the non-executive unions: a) Chennai b) Pune c) Patna d) Hyderabad. Com. P.Abhimanyu, GS, BSNLEU is authorised to contact the General Secretaries and fix the dates of the meetings etc. 5. The next meeting of the committee will be held on 13th February 2012 on which date the notice may be served. The possibility of serving a Joint Notice also will be explored. After vote of thanks the meeting came to an end at 1200 hours. V.A.N.Namboodiri New Delhi Convener of the meeting 03-02-2012

The Telecom Commission after much discussion has finally decided to allocate the 2G Spectrum by auction in future. It is also decided that all future licences will be without the spectrum bundled with it. Uniform Licence Fee will be 8% for a two-year period. Unified licence for all services and all circles will be for Rs. 20 crore. All the operators who have more than 4.4 Mhz spectrum will have to pay a one-time fee, which will be retrospective and will be based on the future auction price.

These decisions will have far-reaching impact on the telecom services. It is necessary that certain provisions will have to be exempted for BSNL and MTNL  considering they are government companies and their existence is important for the nation as a whole.