BSNL staff’s demands to be fulfilled; pay and pension to be revised

The Government has agreed to fulfill the demands of thousands of BSNL employees including that of pay and pension revision. In a meeting of the All Unions and Associations of BSNL (AUAB) and the Department of Telecom (DoT) and Minister of State for Telecommunication, Manoj Sinha, it was agreed that the pension revision of BSNL retirees will be delinked from the pay revision of existing employees.

According to AUAB pension revision should have no link with pay revision or BSNL’s affordability. As a result, the demand of the employees for pay revision with full 15 per cent fitment will gain more strength.

However, nothing has been finalised with regard to the Third Pay Revision. The DoT had been against BSNL staff being given wage revision, but now it seems to be considering settling the Third Pay Revision, even though 15 per cent fitment seems out of the question.

BSNL will be unable to pay salary, if the Third Pay Revision is settled with 15 per cent fitment.

The Cabinet will not accept what the BSNL projected to fulfil the additional expenditure for the Third Pay Revision, before the allotment of the 4G spectrum.

If the proposal of 4G spectrum and Third PRC are presented to the Cabinet together, both may be overruled.

In order to get the Third Pay Revision accepted, other sources will need to be sought for additional income. The wage revision negotiation of the non-executives will be settled before a final decision is made.

It has also been decided that there will be an institutional mechanism in place in DoT which will track the progress on various demands. According to this mechanism, the AUAB will regularly review the progress made in settling the issues with the officials of DoT.

Once the process for completing inter-ministerial consultation is over, the issue of approval for allotment of 4G spectrum to BSNL will be taken up in the next Cabinet meeting.