Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) is cutting its workforce by 35 per cent by rolling out a second voluntary-retirement scheme (VRS). To carry out the same, the State-owned telecom company has sought a grant of Rs 15,000 crore from the Ministry of Finance, reports ET. While the board of BSNL has consented to the scheme, the final decision is yet to be made as the approval of the Cabinet is awaited post the green signal from the Finance Ministry.
When the first VRS was announced back in 2019, out of the 1.6 lakh total employees, almost 80,000 above the age of 50 had opted for the scheme in just over two weeks of being rolled out.
This second round of VRS is expected to do good for the telecom company’s financial stability. Therefore, a proposal has been sent to the Department of Telecom (DoT) detailing the present expenses of about 38 per cent of the telco’s total annual revenue on salary disbursement alone. Post the roll-out of this VRS, the company’s expenses on employees’ salaries are expected to come down from Rs 7,500 crore to Rs 5,000 crore a year. In addition, the company’s operations will also improve along with efficiency.
It is pertinent to mention here that BSNL is yet to roll out 4G services nationwide. The telco reportedly posted a revenue of Rs 21,302 crore in the financial year 2023-24, which was just marginally better to the previous fiscal.
