By delaying and denying Pension Revision from 01-01-2017, denying payment of medical allowance /medical reimbursement and not paying arrears of DR confiscated for 18 months, the government / BSNL is attacking the rightful claims of the BSNL pensioners. This is most condemnable.

Government /BSNL management ensure that the above claims are paid without any further delay.

Central government has announced National Monetisation Pipeline, which is intended to sell the central PSUs to private corporates for meagre price. The central trade unions have planned serious struggles and are going to hold a National Convention at Delhi on 11th November.

The Co-ordination Committee of BSNLEU, AIBDPA and BSNLCCWF had planned a massive campaign against NMP. As the first step, demonstrations will be held on 9th November 2021 in front of BSNL Offices.

Join and make the programme a big success.

In preparation for the next All India Conference of AIBDPA, conferences from Branch / Area level has started. Next will be District Conferences and Circle Conferences. Being a democratically functioning organization, the conferences will be held in time at all levels. The work done after the last conference, organizational activities, agitations, achievements etc. will be discussed and election of office-bearers also will be held.

Com.K.G.Jayaraj, General Secretary, AIBDPA has written to the Railway Minister demanding restoration of the train ticket concessions to the Pensioners / senior citizens. The letter is posted in AIBDPA website aibdpa.com

BSNL is in very difficult situation. Workers are fully supporting the management in developmental activities. In this connection, it will be more helpful if a representative of the workers is appointed as one of the Directors. In Nepal Telecommunications, one of the Directors is a representative of the workers. This was raised at the initial stage of BSNL, but was not accepted.

Com.K.G.Jayaraj, General Secretary, AIBDPA has written to Secretary, DOT demanding Pension Revision for BSNL absorbed DOT employees wef 01-01-2017. The demand is fully justified. The government should accept the demand.

It is seen that 4 Independent Directors for BSNL have been appointed by the government of India for a period of three years. It is also stipulated that their TA and DA for attending the meetings will be paid as per rules.

BSNL is a 100% government owned company and for many years there was no Independent Director. It was functioning well. When the BSNL is facing severe financial problems and even medical bills / medical allowance are not being paid, what is the necessity of Independent Directors ? What is their duty? Why unnecessary expenditure ?

Pensioners’ Associations have been continuously making efforts to improve the pension system to enable them to live a satisfied and dignified life. But at the same time, the government was conspiring how to reduce the ‘burden’ of pension. New Pension Scheme (NPS) was implemented for employees recruited from 2004, denying them the existing defined statutory pension and converting in to contributory pension. The Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority (PFRDA) was constituted with powers to extend it to earlier pensioners also, in case the government decides so. Except the then Left Governments of W.Bengal, Kerala and Tripura – all state governments followed suit by introducing the NPS in their states. Workers sarcastically called it ‘No Pension Scheme’. Despite strong protests from the pensioners’ organisations, defined statutory pension was not restored.

Pension for BSNL Retirees.

BSNL was formed in October 2000, bifurcating the services section of telecom from DOT in to Public Sector Unit. There were strong protest actions against the convesrsion and series of strike actions took place. Workers understood that the corporatisation was the first step towards privatisation and hence the sustained struggles. However, despite the strong protest of progressive unions like All India Telecom Employees Union Class III (N), the recognised Federations NFTE, FNTO and BTEF agreed for corporatisation with certain conditions. One condition was that government pension will be ensured to the BSNL absorbed DOT employees. It was later to be seen that the government was not very sincere and created umpteen problems with regarding to the calculation of pension and other connected matters, against which the workers had to organise struggles.

BSNL Employees Union was formed in 2001 by merging eight progressive unions, including E.III(N), T.III, Administrative Unions etc. Since its formation, it was dedicated to not only taking up the problems of workers, but also that of Pensioners as well as Casual and Contract workers. There were a lot of problems created by the government in payment of pension about which will be mentioned in the next chapter (to be continued).

During the last 7 yeas of Modi Government the prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas gone sky high, almost double the price from the position when it took over the central government. This is also far higher than the prices in our neibhouring countries in Asia. The increase in price of petroleum products will also result in increase of prices of almost all essential articles.

Strong protest actions require to be organised against this attack on the common people.