Gross injustice is cruelly meted out to the thousands of casual labour by the BSNL management. They were engaged by the DOT, mainly in the 1980s and 1990s and they have been working continuously for the last twenty to 13 years. At the time of corporatisation it was assured by the DOT that all the left out casual labours, who are eligible as per the existing rules will be regularised and vacancies were kept for them. More than six thousand casual labours were regularised accordingly on or after 01-10-2000. But due to the administrative lethargy of certain field/circle management, many cases for regularisation were not furnished to the BSNL Corporate Office quickly. But most of these cases were furnished to the C.O. by 2003-2004.
Instead of regularising them as per assurance, the BSNL Corporate delayed them month after month in the name of scrutinising the records etc. And now it is denying regularisation on the plea of a Supreme Court Judgement. But DOP&T has clearly given permission to regularise the casual labour on the basis of the same Supreme Court judgement and many Departments like Income Tax, Customs, Central Excise have already regularised their casual labours.
But despite BSNLEU, the lone recognised union in BSNL, has been continuously taking up the case in all forums including the National Council, the management has not taken any action to regularise them so far. Even the Labour Ministry has recently issued a statement regarding the rules for regularisation of TSMs and Casual Labour.
If there is any sincerity left on the part of the management they can not keep away from the regularisation of these workers engaged in the DOT/BSNL for many years. Any delay in forwarding their cases to the corporate office was not by their mistake, but by the field level management. The mistake has to be corrected and they should be regularised. The assurance given to the Unions for their regularisation should be kept. There is not much financial commitment since they are already getting the wage of a Group D in the Central Government.
Today, once again, the issue was discussed by me with Shri A.N.Rai, Director (HR) and Shri R.N.Goyal, GM (Estt.) and demanded that immediate action be taken to regularise them. Both of them agreed that some way has got to be found. I have told that these casual labour can be regularised in the same way, how others were regularised in the Income Tax etc. and how they were regularised in BSNL itself earlier. We want that justice be meted out to these workers who toiled their entire youth for the development, expansion and maintenance of the DOT/BSNL services. History will not forgive the BSNL management if justice is not meted to these workers.
