Report of Kamgar Ekta Committee (KEC) correspondent of the meeting on above topic on September 9, 2024 organised by All India Forum Against Privatisation (AIFAP)
The All India Forum Against Privatisation (AIFAP) had organised an important online meeting on the topic “Protect BSNL and MTNL and the interests of its employees” on September 9, 2024. Com A. Mathew, Convener of AIFAP, welcomed everyone and gave his introductory remarks. One by one he introduced the speakers: Com. Chandeshwar Singh, General Secretary, National Federation of Telecom Employees (NFTE), Shri M. S. Adasul, General Secretary, Sanchar Nigam Executives Association (SNEA), Com Uday Chaudhary, Vice President of AITUC, Maharashtra, Shri Girish, Joint Secretary, Kamgar Ekta Committee (KEC), Shri Anil Kumar, Secretary General, National Confederation of Officers Association (NCOA) and Shri G.L. Jogi, General Secretary, Sanchar Nigam Pensioners Welfare Association (SNPWA).
After each of the speakers, the floor was thrown open for discussion. The important points made by various speakers and participants are highlighted below.
Facts about BSNL and telephony in India
Initially the telecom sector was in the hands of the government and functioned as a government department. After the policy of liberalization, privatisation and globalization (LPG) was implemented in 1991-92 by the then Congress government, private players were permitted entry into this sector. In 1996 mobile services were started in Delhi by Airtel. The private sector was encouraged by the government with all sorts of inducements. Private companies entered the profitable areas like cities and left the loss-making areas, the far flung areas, the hilly areas and the border areas to government service provider.
BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.) was established on October 1, 2000. At one time BSNL, the only PSU with 100% government ownership, was the largest telecom provider.
BSNL was implementing in an exemplary manner the declared aims of the Telecom Policy brought in by Sam Pitroda in 1988: to provide uniform services, at affordable prices, even to far-flung areas. They took them to the remotest parts of the country and suffered big losses but BSNL was not compensated, as promised.
Private players providing mobile phone service were charging Rs. 16 per minute for an outgoing call and Rs. 12 per minute for incoming. (Remember that in 1996, the value of the rupee was much more than what it is today).
For 2 years BSNL was not allowed to enter the field of mobile services. Workers were on the streets, demanding it. Finally, when BSNL was given the go-ahead, it charged Rs. 2.40 for 3 minutes! The private players had to bring their prices down to that level too.
BSNL thus has played an excellent role in protecting the users, particularly the poor.
By 2007, the market share of BSNL was 18%, only slightly less than the leader Airtel at 19%.
In 2007, A Raja, who was then Telecom Minister in the Congress led government, cancelled a very transparent tender that BSNL had won, to install 45 million mobile lines. This was like a body blow to BSNL. It was installing landlines too, that were really loss-making, and not just mobiles.
In 2012 Airtel, Vodafone and Idea were given 4G license but BSNL was denied. As a result, while private players upgraded their service, BSNL could not and lost a large number of its customers.
Today BSNL is left with 85.77 million subscribers, which is 8% of the total. As against that, Reliance Jio has 476.5 million, Bharti Airtel 389 million and Vodafone 217.3 million subscribers.
BSNL even today has the largest telecom infrastructure of 1 lakh towers out of which 25% are being used by Jio on rent. It has 8 lakh kilometers of optical fiber cables (OFC networks) which is the largest network.
It is the 4th largest mobile telecom provider in India and 25th biggest mobile network in the world.
Today the telecom industry in India is the second largest in the world having 1.096 billion subscribers according to latest available figures.
Wrecking of BSNL to help private players
Ever since BSNL was formed out of the Ministry of Telecommunications in 2000, with various promises from the government, it is a story of broken promises. The interest free non-returnable working capital of ₹7,500 crores was snatched back and a total of Rs. 42000 crores along with interest was taken by the Government from BSNL, wiping out all its reserves. It was not allowed to bid for 2G, 3G when others were given those licenses, forcing BSNL to approach the High Court to demand a level playing field. The government made BSNL pay for the use of its own 66000 towers, while it paid for other private players!
Due to denial of 4G license, BSNL has been losing 100 rupees per month per user which translates to 8 thousand crores rupees per annum. So for the last 10 years it has suffered a loss of nearly Rs.1 lakh crores. In spite of this while private telecom sector players have outstanding loans of Rs.6 lakh crores to the banks, mainly public sector banks, BSNL has only Rs.30,000 crores of debt which is 5% of the debt of the private sector players.
In 2015 the government through the Telecom Authority of India, allowed Jio to implement predatory pricing policy. The International Telecom Union does not allow predatory prices for more than 3 months. So, this was the worst violation, not seen anywhere else in the world. Reliance of Mukesh Ambani became the king of data. Airtel and Vodafone were compensated for the losses they suffered due to predatory pricing by waiving off Rs. 1,60,000 crores of their dues in one stroke. BSNSL was not compensated for the loss it suffered due to the denial of the 4G license.
Jio, Airtel and Vodafone have 4 lakh crore of NPAs, while BSNL has just Rs. 15,000 crore.
Revival of BSNL – is it being revived for privatisation?
After continued struggle by workers for 4G, the government announced in 2019 that 4G spectrum will be allotted to BSNL. Rs. 80,000 crore was given to BSNL in the name of revival.
Out of that Rs. 70,000 crore went into VRS. Nearly 80,000 workers took VRS because they feared a bleak future, with transfers and closure of their offices.
Today about 50% of BSNL activities are outsourced, and the engineers who work for the contractor get a miserable monthly salary of Rs. 15000, while other workers are paid less than Rs. 10000, which is less than the declared minimum wages.
When 4G spectrum had become available, the government decreed that BSNL could roll out 4G only with Swadeshi equipment even though Jio, Vodafone, Idea were using foreign equipment without any problem! Since there was no 4G equipment manufactured in India at that time, it was like denying the 4G to BSNL. BSNL was not even allowed to adapt its existing equipment to 4G.
After BSNL was denied 4G for 12 years, the Tata group was given the order for supplying technology and equipment for 4G services to BSNL. Already a contract has been signed through which Tata will get complete control of 4G – implementation, commissioning, operation and maintenance. They will move into 5G also.
For developing and producing equipment for 4G, Tatas have been allowed the use of central government undertakings like C-dot and ITI. Tata has been given free use of ITI facilities, a public sector unit (PSU) to manufacture RRU’s (Remote radio units) and BBU’s (Base band unit). RRU’s and BBU’s are required to be installed on the towers for 4G network. Tatas are using three manufacturing plants of ITI at Bangalore, Palaghat and Mangapur (UP). They forced ITI to spend Rs. 60 crores for building the infrastructure to manufacture these items and are giving ITI only a 2% margin for making these hardware items. They have put the TCS name plate outside these 3 factories. They are literally using the facilities and infrastructure of ITI for free.
The implementation by Tatas is behind schedule. One lakh towers were to be put up by December 2023, but they have not been. Further, installation of 4G has disrupted 3G and it is difficult to retain customers.
In the recent budget, the Finance Minister announced another package of ₹86,000 crores to BSNL. It is believed by many that BSNL is being revived with a view of handing it over to a monopolist like Tata.
After the Indian Railways, and various defence establishments, the government telecom sector has the largest land assets, massive in size. 530 of these land parcels have been notified for sale. Big capitalists are greedily eyeing valuable land in big cities. Workers staying in BSNL quarters in Mumbai, Lucknow, etc. have been served notices to vacate.
Plight and fight of BSNL workers
After October 1, 2010, recruitment in BSNL has drastically dropped. There has been no pay revision since 2007 on the plea of “non-affordability” and “non-profitability”. Similarly, the allowances have not been revised since 2002! The workers are being blamed for the losses of BSNL, whereas it is the Government’s deliberate policy of wrecking BSNL which has created this situation. BSNL workers have been waging struggles since 2007. About six thousand of them have marched to parliament, protested in Jantar Mantar, and so on.
The employees, who were assured of pension out of Government funds, protection of their salaries, etc., were driven out – 80000 of them – on VRS (which actually was compulsory retirement scheme, CRS), giving excuse of the company has become loss making. The onus of making BSNL loss making is with the Government who has given the towers of BSNL to the private players for use at throw away prices at the cost of BSNL expanding its services.
After 80,000 workers took VRS, BSNL is now left with only 56000 to 57000 workers. This has greatly affected their fighting strength. Lack of unity among them compounds the problem. The workers have also resolved to oppose any new VRS.
The relentless struggle of the BSNL workers has so far prevented the privatization of BSNL. There is a need to consolidate the struggle and get the support of all sections of the working people who will also suffer greatly if BSNL is privatized.
About MTNL workers
Like BSNL workers, 3000 of the workers of MTNL have also got no wage revision or promotion. MTNL and BSNL merger has been shelved because they do not want to increase the workforce.
The government had announced the merger of MTNL with BSNL, which was opposed by workers of MTNL. As employees of MTNL, they were posted only in the metros, whereas in BSNL they are liable to be transferred to far-flung areas – something they had not signed for when they joined MTNL. The merger has now been shelved.
(Continued in Part 2)