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Blaming the erstwhile UPA government for “killing” public sector telecom majors MTNL and BSNL, the RSS-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) on Wednesday urged the NDA government to take steps for their revival and suggested that 25,000 Prasar Bharati towers could be used for mobile antennas on revenue-sharing basis.
Falling revenues The suggestion came at a convention held here on the revival of MTNL, organised by a BMS-affiliated union in MTNL, and addressed by Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, MTNL top brass and BMS central leaders.
Addressing the employees, PK Puruwar, CMD of MTNL, said the company had been facing stagnant or falling revenues along with high salary costs. “This year, our revenue has fallen to ₹32,000 crore from ₹34,000 crore last year,” he said.
Puruwar said MTNL was also burdened by a big loan of ₹18,300 crore and an interest burden of about ₹1,400 crore. “The salary cost of over 30,000 employees constitutes 82 per cent of our revenues,” he said, urging them to put in their best to attract 30 lakh new customers, as also meet at least 80 per cent complaints of existing customers “within 4 hours”.
Seeking government as well as employees support to revive the public sector telecom major, the CMD said MTNL had decided last week to place a ₹450-crore order for mobile equipment to be installed in 180 sites in the next 6-8 months. To tackle the problem of acute cable shortage, it has also been decided to purchase 400 pairs of new cables. “Today, the customer has many choices, we cannot hold them back unless we change processes,” he added.
MTNL revival The Labour Minister urged the CMD to prepare a report on the requirement and steps for revival of MTNL so that he can take the matter up with the Prime Minister. .
“We have heard that the MTNL mobile network will be run on revenue-sharing basis by BSNL,” said a BMS leader, while another union member rued that they had not been getting perks and bonuses since the past 6-7 years, adding that “you cannot tie our hands and ask us to face competition.’
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