March 18, 2020
Saugata Roy asks a question on voluntary retirement scheme in BSNL
FULL TRANSCRIPT
I appreciate the reply of the Honourable Minister, and the fact that the Government is thinking of neither closing down BSNL nor passing it on to a private operator, I also appreciate that you have given a reasonably good VRS scheme.
But the point you are trying to make is that BSNL was over-staffed because it was primarily dealing with fixed-line telephones. The operation of a mobile network doesn’t need any operator on the ground. We only have the towers and the Centre-controlled systems. For fixed line operations, you have to draw lines through crowded areas which naturally affect people.
I will only ask the Honourable Minister whether the posts from which people have taken VRS will be abolished or not. I assume they will, but then because the more experienced people have retired, it will leave BSNL with inadequate human resources to run the whole system. You should now be thinking of bringing 4G on a much larger scale and shifting experienced employees to run the 4G system rather than letting them retire.
I want to ask you, therefore, whether you are willing to review this decision of abolition of posts, and also whether you will pay the clear dues of all contract workers within three months.
