The State-owned telecom company BSNL released a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for its employees with an aim that this will help the company to save around Rs 7,000 crores in the wage bill. From the Scheme, they are expecting that round about 70,000 to 80,000 employees will opt for it, which will be helping them in finance. Out of the entire staff of 1.5 lakh, around 1 lakh employee are eligible to avail the Scheme.
As per the Chairman and Managing Director of BSNL P K Purwar, the Scheme will be open from November 4 and will be available till December 3. He added that the instructions are given to the people in Field units to inform the employees about the VRS scheme.
What is BSNL VRS Scheme?
As per the ‘BSNL Voluntary Retirement Scheme-2019’, the permanent and regular employees of BSNL including those who are outside the company on deputation basis in another organisation /company or are posted on deputation basis outside BSNL, and are at the age of 50 or above are entitled to claim the VRS scheme.
Ex-gratia amount for all the eligible employee would be equal to his 35 days salary for every completed year of service and also 25 days salary for every year of service left until superannuation.
Storying behind BSNL offering VRS
In October, the government has approved to plan of merging MTNL that provides services in the state of Mumbai and New Delhi and BSNL which serves the rest of the Nation. The revival package of these two loss-making company is Rs 69,000.
The reason for introducing the VRS scheme was that in this way, when both the companies will be combined, it would turn into a profitable entity in two years. Both MTNL and BSNL are imposing a VRS scheme, and the result is positive. Both of them will even monetise their assets which are worth Rs. 37,500 crores. It is reported that both MTNL and BSNL are running in a loss since last ten years and have around Rs 40,000 crore debt. As per the plan, BSNL will bear all the liability, and MTNL will become its subsidiary.
Around 50,000 to 60,000 employees in both the companies have opted for the Scheme which rolled out from November 4.
The aftermath of the Scheme
Raghu, BSNL employee in Tamil Nadu and has also availed the VRS scheme said, “We are the people who work hard to restore mobile connectivity immediately after natural calamities and in the remotest of places in the country. Now we are the ones who are opting to lose out on service years because of the government’s mismanagement,”.
Department of Telecommunications (DoT) after the VRS scheme is introduced from this month asked BS NL to make sure that the work is going on, there are continuity and smooth transition which special attention to operate it in the rural areas.
BS.NL is reviewing whether VRS will affect the continuity of the business, as many of the employees are opting for it. In discussion with DoT different option were put forth which included rope in few of the employee who is taking VRS scheme as a consultant (low cost), take the retired BS NL officers who are expert in this field and many more.
