As per the instructions of the Corporate Office, medical claims of the employees are to be settled at the Business Area level, after the consolidation of BA takes place. On many occasions, the medical bills get held up in the office and the employee concerned has to personally go to the section. This happens frequently. If the medical bills are to be settled only at the BA level, then the employee has to travel hundreds of kilometres to get his medical claim settled. This will create unnecessary harassment to the employees. BSNLEU has written to the CMD BSNL, demanding that, the medical claims should continue to be settled at the SSA level, even after the consolidation of the Business Area.

The DR JEs posted in the Leh SSA of J&K circle, suffer extreme hardship due to the sub-zero temperature prevailing in most parts of the year. In view of this, BSNLEU has already raised the demand before the Director (HR) that, the DR JEs who have completed two years of service and who have applied for transfer to other SSAs of J&K circle should get the transfer. In continuation of this, BSNLEU has written a letter to the Director (HR) today, insisting for settlement of this issue.

The BSNL Management is in the process of implementing E-Office. However, in this process the Non-Executive cadres like JAO, SOA, AOS and OS are being sidelined. Their jobs are limited to “scanning the documents, rearranging the files”, etc. This clearly indicates that the aforementioned Non-Executive cadres are being converted into Group Ds. BSNLEU has written to the CMD BSNL, expressing it’s disagreement and demanding to take necessary remedial steps.

BSNLEU is continuously demanding payment of salary on the due date. So far Management has not disbursed salary of February, 2021. BSNLEU has written to the CMD BSNL, demanding immediate payment of the salary with 6% simple interest. The demand for payment of interest is raised, based on the recent judgement of Hon’ble Supreme Court, in the Civil Appeal No.399, of 2021 (The State of Andhra Pradesh and Another Vs. Mrs. Dinavahi Lakshmi Kameswari). In this case, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has directed payment of the deferred salary with 6% simple interest.

Responding to the proposal of the Recruitment Branch of the BSNL Corporate Office, to hold the LICEs of the Non-Executives online, BSNLEU has written a firm reply. In the letter addressed to the Director (HR), BSNLEU has reasoned that, Non-Executive cadres like TT and ATT do not have access to computer in their day to day works. Hence, they are not familiar to computer operations. Thus, holding the LICEs of the Non-Executives online, will create much hardship to the Non-Executives, stated BSNLEU in the letter.

Based on the writ petition filed by BSNLEU, the Hon’ble Kerala High Court has given direction to the DPE on 17.02.2021, directing it to pay IDA to the Non-Executives of BSNL. However, the DPE has written a letter to the DoT on 09.03.2021, directing it to take necessary action. The DPE has mentioned in it’s letter that it issues order, in respect of payment of IDA only for the Executives and Non-Unionised Supervisors of the CPSEs and not  in respect of the Non-Executives. Hence, the DPE has directed the Secretary, DoT, to take necessary action on this matter, since BSNL comes under the administrative control of the DoT. In view of this, BSNLEU has written letter to Shri Anshu Prakash, Secretary, DoT, today, requesting him to issue necessary direction to the BSNL Management for the payment of 5.5% IDA w.e.f. 01.10.2020 and 6.1% IDA w.e.f. 01.01.2021 to the Non-Executives of BSNL.

The Hon’ble Kerala High Court has directed that the IDA instalment (5.5%), that has become due from 01.10.2020, should be paid to the Non-Executives. This judgement is delivered, on the writ petition filed by BSNLEU. After the judgement was delivered by the Hon’ble Kerala High Court, General Secretary, BSNLEU, wrote to the Secretary, DPE, and requested him to implement the court decision by issuing order for payment of the IDA. The Secretary, DPE, has forwarded the General Secretary’s letter to the Secretary, Telecom, and has directed him to take the necessary action.