Maxis Communications has allocated Rs. 95 crore for the settlement of salaries for the 5000 erstwhile staff of the company in India. The fund will also be used to offset immediate operational expenses.
The move comes after a widespread protest against the non-payment of dues to former employees who worked hard for the development and growth of Aircel. It is to be noted that Aircel had filed for bankruptcy due to the inability to do business in the so-called financially stressed climate.
Meanwhile, BSNL has approached the Department of Telecom (DoT) for the recovery of the outstanding dues from troubled Aircel. The state-owned company has disclosed that the company is exploring all the legal remedial measures for the immediate recovery of Rs 42 crore. Aircel also owes Rs. 60 crore to Idea cellular towards interconnect usage charges (IUC). There are reports that Aircel would also have to pay a huge amount to Vodafone.
Commenting on the development, BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava confirmed the issue of a letter for the recovery of dues from Aircel. he added that the BSNL could recover Rs 320 million from bank guarantees (BG) and remaining from the reconciliation of other bank guarantees held by the government.
According to BSNL, the company initiated the process for the swift recovery of all the outstanding amounts through follow-ups and bank guarantees soon after Aircel and dishnet wireless filed for bankruptcy. The dues are mainly part of the inter-operator settlements such as call connect usage charges, tower sharing including intra-circle roaming agreements.
As of this writing, BSNL had recovered Rs. 320 million with another Rs. 100 million pending before them. Shrivastava added that he had sought Government intervention for the recovery of dues from the ill-fated company.
The main reason for the bankruptcy of Aircel is attributed to the intense competition from disruptive players such as Reliance Jio. Moreover, the company also added that complex legal and regulatory challenges also is a cause of concern followed by a high level of unsustainable debt and increased losses.
After the announcement of bankruptcy, BSNL successfully ported around 3.5 million customers of Aircel. The state-owned company have a market share of 9.4 percent as of January 31 and added over 300,000 customers.
