September 21, 2020
Dola Sen makes Zero Hour mention on BSNL workers not getting salaries
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Thank you, Chairman Sir, for allowing me to deliver my Zero Hour submission. My topic today is BSNL workers not getting salaries from long back. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited is our nation’s pride.
Due to the financial crisis, BSNL has offered a VRS package for its permanent workers and has failed to pay its contractual workers for the last two years.
The Central Government intends to sell stakes in public sector enterprises or give up complete ownership of 29 billion dollars after it has come in a second time. The enterprises include the national carrier, Air India, insurer Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), oil refiners Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, the country’s lifeline, the Indian Railways, coal sector companies, Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals, Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, Steel Authority of India Limited, Alloy Steel Plant and even defence sector companies like the Ordnance Factories Board
In a nutshell, we may say that from SAIL to Rail, everything is at stake. In BSNL, in the Kolkata circle, only 2,000 permanent workers are left as 5,500 permanent workers have taken VRS. Obviously therefore, BSNL has to depend on contractual workers, whose numbers are 4,500 in the Kolkata circle and 3,500 in the West Bengal circle.
Therefore, there are approximately 8,000 contractual workers working for BSNL in Bengal. The number is more than one lakh, if you consider the whole of India. All these 8,000 workers have been working all through yet not getting wages after April 2019. It is an absurd and completely illegal situation. To make ends meet, they have been forced to take up private entrepreneurship or work in grocery and stationary shops. Yet, they are not agitating but are continuously giving their service.
It seems to be, with due respect, that the ruling party of the Central Government had secured victory in the last election … <interruption>
