BSNL employees still wait for their salaries
| Date :17-Sep-2019 |
Staff Reporter :
Cash strapped Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has defaulted on payment of salaries of its employees for August. This is second time in the year the Mini Ratna company could not meet its committed expenditure on salaries. For employees each passing day is full of suspense given the current problem of cash flow of company due to intense competition in the telecom sector. The employees said that their salaries are credited by end of every month. However, now more than two weeks have passed and there is no word yet from Circle office of Maharashtra about release of payments.
Each day comes with anticipation that today salary would be credited and employees wait for that SMS from bank about credit of money in their respective accounts. Right from Principal General Manager (PGM) to linemen on ground everybody is keeping their fingers crossed waiting for release of their salaries, their hard earned money. Last time in February, BSNL had first time in its history defaulted on payment of salaries of its 1.76 lakh employees.
That time company had cited financial constraints for its inability to pay timely payment. The default that time was despite heavy inflow of annual charges by high end data users to BSNL. Though for next few months everything went on smoothly, the current drop in revenue has forced BSNL management hand in stopping the salaries for August. BSNL is incurring losses for past five years and its net worth too has dropped drastically as top brass tried to balance expectations of customers and improve delivery of services. Nearly 55 per cent of its revenue goes in meeting salary expenditure that is quite a burden for the state run telecom company and it needs to reduce if it is serious about staying afloat.
Employees union too have not raised much hue and cry about delay in disbursement of August salary saying that they can understanding the current situation and are sure once financial position improves they would get their dues. However for employees who have taken loans and have monthly commitment in terms of payment of premium of LIC, repayment of society loans are in trouble due to default on part of BSNL. Though they were issued salary slips showing standard deductions as per standing instructions, the same was not deposited in respective accounts as yet.