BSNL to put off 19,000 employees: Congress slams Modi’s ‘privatisation conspiracy’

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Restricted (BSNL), the state-run telecom big, is about to slash its workforce by 35 per cent, with plans to put off 18,000–19,000 workers by means of a second Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS).

In line with a report by the Financial Occasions, the division of telecommunications (DoT) has sought Rs 15,000 crore from the finance ministry to fund the scheme, geared toward trimming BSNL’s bloated wage invoice.

BSNL presently spends Rs 7,500 crore yearly — almost 38 per cent of its complete income — on worker salaries.

The proposed layoffs intention to chop this expenditure to Rs 5,000 crore to ‘streamline operations and enhance effectivity’. A senior official aware about the plans was quoted as saying by the media: “BSNL’s board has despatched a proposal to the DoT to scale back the worker base through VRS and make the telco’s stability sheet more healthy.”

Reacting to this improvement, the Congress occasion has accused the Modi authorities of orchestrating a ‘deliberate conspiracy’ to dismantle public sector enterprises for the good thing about personal gamers.

‘That is nothing however a ploy to destroy authorities firms and hand them over to Modi’s company associates,’ the occasion charged in its assertion.

Highlighting the nation’s unemployment disaster, Congress added: ‘At a time when India’s youth are battling ‘bumper’ unemployment, Modi’s authorities is throwing 1000’s out of labor whereas making his associates richer.

‘From wandering metropolis to metropolis for jobs to being lathi-charged on the streets, the youth are paying the worth for this regime’s priorities.

‘Modi has determined: I’ll make India’s youth beg for jobs, however I’ll make my associates billionaires.’

Including to the controversy, some have claimed that the Modi authorities lately paid Rs 132 crore to Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for drafting a ‘revival technique’ for the BSNL.

In the meantime, workers have dismissed the transfer as ‘futile’, questioning its effectiveness given the corporate’s lack of ability to roll out 4G companies nationwide.

Whereas BSNL’s board has accepted the VRS proposal, officers say discussions are ongoing and no closing resolution has been made.

Critics argue that this transfer displays the Modi authorities’s bigger agenda of privatising key public property beneath the guise of economic effectivity. The battle over BSNL’s future underscores a rising political debate: Will public sector enterprises survive or will they be sacrificed to the altar of privatisation?

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