BSNL is in the news for all the wrong reasons. The state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is planning to cut down the total workforce drastically for the sake of survival. According to reports, BSNL is contemplating an unprecedented elimination of 54451 workers by reducing the retirement age to 58. The company also reportedly prepared a comprehensive voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for the employees above 50 years.
The new revival proposals as formulated by an expert committee comprising of IIM-A faculty members are expected to be discussed during the BSNL Board meeting on February 15. The move is to slash the retirement age from 60 to 58.
This will reduce the total employee count by 33568 employees and hence can save Rs 13895 crore over the next 6 years. It is vital for the state-owned enterprise to reduce the retirement age to survive in the segment. There are reports that employees above 58 and not yielding any output and are not productive. The company will be able to remove 54451 employees out of the total 174312 workforces.
If the Government gives salary for the pending service years and subsequent pension, then employees will most likely accept the offer without any problem from trade unions. There will be problems if the BSNL only offers pension and declines salary for the remaining service periods. The state-owned company should strike a balance and take employees and unions into confidence before proceeding to implement the decision.
The expert committee comprising of Prof Rekha Jain (co-ordinator), Prof Vishal Gupta and Professor Pandey visited BSNL circle offices across India and had extensive deliberations with management, employees and trade unions. Going forward, we can expect shackles in the BSNL but it will not affect the services. The company can manage the crisis if it takes the employees into confidence.
