The statement of Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Honb’le Minister of Communications and IT, has instilled hope in the minds of all those, who desire that the BSNL should be revived. He has stated that BSNL and MTNL should remain healthy in the interest of the Nation. Welcoming the statement of the Honb’le Minister, BSNLEU has written to him, drawing his attention to some of the crucial issues, being faced by BSNL and it’s employees.

The Corporate Office has decided to collect fee from the Internal Candidates, who are appearing in the forthcoming Telecom Technician LICE. The quantum of fee will be Rs. 500 for General / OBC candidates, and Rs.250 for SC/SC candidates. BSNLEU has opposed this collection of fee from Internal Candidates, and has written to the CMD BSNL. For the exam held in 2017 also, Management decided to collect RS.750 from General/OBC candidates and Rs.500 from SC/ST candidates. However, due to the intervention of BSNLEU, that decision was given up.

The 9th All India Conference of BSNLEU, held at Mysuru, from 17th to 20th December, 2018, has unanimously decided that the recognition rules of the Non-Executives should be amended, so that the second union also will get recognition, even if the first union gets 50% or more votes. Immediately thereafter, BSNLEU handed over copy of the resolution to the CMD BSNL and to the Director (HR) and is continuously demanding that the needful amendment should be done to the Recognition Rules. However, the Management has not taken any action on this matter so far. Under these circumstances, Com.P. Abhimanyu,GS, BSNLEU met Shri Anupam Srivastava, CMD BSNL, on 27.05.2019, together with Com.Chandeshwar Singh, GS, NFTE, and demanded that the Recognition Rules should be amended immediately, as demanded by BSNLEU. He also handed over to the CMD BSNL, a letter in this regard.

Ms.Sujata Ray, Director(HR), retired on superannuation on 30-04-2019. Thereafter, the post is being looked after by the CMD BSNL himself. BSNL is one of the biggest Public Sector Enterprises, with around 1,70,000 Executives and Non-Executives. Non-availability of a full-fledged Director(HR) will create difficulties in the resolution of the day to day HR issues. Hence, BSNLEU has written to the Secretary, Telecom, demanding the immediate appointment of a full-fledged Director (HR) and pending that, appointment of an interim Director (HR), in line with the appointment of interim Director (Finance) and interim Director (CM).

The SSAs in Karnataka circle are being consolidated into six Business Areas, viz., Bangalore, Dakshina Kannada-Karwar, Gulbarga, Tumkur, Shimoga and Mysore. The Non-Executives working in the head quarters of the Business Areas are having apprehensions that work load will increase sizably. CHQ has written to the CMD BSNL requesting to take necessary action to cope with the increased work load.

BSNLEU is continuously urging upon the Corporate Management to ensure that the questions to be asked in the forthcoming JE LICE are not of ‘high standard’. This issue is already discussed with the GM(Rectt.). Again, this issue was raised by BSNLEU in the National Council meeting, held on 29.04.2019. Once again, BSNLEU has written letter to the GM(Rectt.), demanding to ensure that, the standard of questions will not be high for the forthcoming JE LICE.

The issues involved in the Consolidation of SSAs into Business Areas was discussed with the Management yesterday. In continuation of this, BSNLEU has written to the GM(Restg.).