Is there a level playing ground between BSNL and the Private Telecom Operators?
The Private Telecom Operators always demand level playing ground on par with the Public Sector Telecom Operator BSNL. The meaning is that the BSNL should be treated as a Private Telecom Operator and any concession not given to private operators should not be given to BSNL also. The Indo-US CEO Forum, a body created by the understanding reached between the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh and the then USA President Mr George Bush in 2006 and consisting of Big Capitalists of USA and India demanded the Indian Government should see that the competition in telecom sector in India between the Private Sector and Public Sector Operators is full and fair. It is thus clear that not only the Indian big capitalists, but also the Big capitalists of Advanced Capitalist Countries like USA, England, France etc are pressurizing the Government of India not to extend any concession to the PSU operator BSNL in case such concession is not given to the Private Operators.
But such an equal treatment has to be extended by the Government only when the Private Operators are carrying out social responsibilities on par with the Public Sector Operators. The private operators have never come forward to fulfill the social responsibilities. Instead, they violated the conditions stipulated in their license to fulfill social responsibility. In the past, the Private Operators did not fulfill the condition of providing 10% of their landlines in rural areas and instead they preferred to pay a meager penalty for violating the condition.
On 6th August 2010there was torrential rain, floods and mudslide in Leh, in Jammu& Kashmir. People in Leh faced havoc. To help them it was necessary to restore the communication links. But the Private Telecom Operators did not offer adequate support for the people of Leh by restoring communication links. They did not come forward to fulfill their social responsibility. Their attitude was condemned by Sri Sachin Pilot, Minister of State for Communications. On the other hand, the Minister praised BSNL. He told that BSNL took all efforts in restoring the basic communication in the region within 24 hours of the flood havoc. It immediately arranged 35 satellite mobile phones.
While BSNL is maintaining the enormous land line network spread throughout the country which it inherited from DoT, by incurring losses, the Private Operators are mostly concentrating on the profitable mobile telephony and maintaining land lines only in urban areas where there is a profit. The landline network being maintained by BSNL alone incurring losses is not a waste. It is a valuable national asset and it has to be fully utilized for making broadband internet service available through out the country and to make our society a knowledge society.
Recently in the Rajyasabha, CPI(M) M.P Smt Brinda Karat asked the question whether it was a fact that while private telecom companies were procuring telecom equipments from Chinese vendors, the BSNL was barred procuring the equipments from the same Chinese companies on the ground of security concerns. To this question Sri Sachin Pilot, the Minister of State for Communications replied that
in the interest of national security, the Government had directed Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited in May, 2009 that resources should not be procured from the Chinese vendors for deployment in the sensitive regions of Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Sikkim, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra. He further told that participation of foreign companies in strategic sector has bearing on national security. BSNL being a Public Sector Undertaking, its network has to be relied upon in emergency. Because of this discrimination against BSNL, it could not procure the GSM equipment necessary for expanding its mobile customer base and hence its share in the mobile services market declined. Thus it is a proven fact that because the BSNL is shouldering the social responsibility and catering to the responsibility of national security, its share in the market has declined compared to the private operators who do not have such social responsibility. It is another matter that after insisting certain safeguards from the Chinese equipment vendors, the Government allowed BSNL also to procure equipment from the Chinese vendors. But by that time the BSNL lost its valuable market share because of the prohibition.
It is also to be noted that the BSNL is one of the largest employer in the country with 3 lakh employees and implementing reservation in jobs for the SC/ST/OBC sections of the population, thus catering to the requirement of social justice. The private operators are exploiting the labor. At the top level in the management they are paying 10 to 15 crores or more per annum as salary where as their regular employment is minimal and outsourced all their work of net work installation and maintenance to the private agencies(both Indian and forein) who are getting the work done by temporary employees with very low wages and without any trade union and labor law rights. For example the person who comes to the house of a subscriber on behalf of Airtel with Airtel badge to install a broadband connection is not the employee of Airtel, but the employee of the franchisee of Ericsson Company with a monthly salary of around Rs 15000, without any social security like EPF. The private operators are not implementing reservations in the jobs. Thus while the Public Sector operator BSNL is carrying out the social responsibility of providing employment and reservations, the private operators are providing only minimal employment and temporary employment violating all labor laws and not implementing reservations for the backward sections of the society.
Thus it is clear that without carrying out the social responsibilities on par with the Public Sector Operators, the Private Sector Telecom Operators (both Indian and their foreign collaborators) have been demanding and pressurizing the Government not to extend any concession to the Public Sector Operators if such concession was not given to them. Coming under their pressure, the Government and TRAI have abolished the ADC being paid by the private operators to BSNL for incurring losses on account of maintaining landlines and stopped the reimbursement of license fee to BSNL, even though such stoppage is a violation of the New Telecom Policy 1999.
It is because of the carrying out of such social responsibilities incurring losses without any compensation from the Government, the BSNL faced a loss of Rs 1800 crore in 2009-10. But the Government is making a bad propaganda that this loss is due to the wage revision arrears paid to the employees! The policies of the Government of India which are being implemented due to the pressure exerted by the Indian big capitalists and their foreign collaborators have resulted in intentionally sabotaging the improvement in BSNL's share in the market by applying several breaks in the timely procurement of the equipment required for expanding the services, in denying the justified compensation for the losses incurred on account of carrying out social responsibility, and the mismanagement by the ITS officers who refuse to be absorbed in BSNL for years together—all these have resulted finally in the steep decline in the market share of BSNL and the first time posting of loss in the balance sheet of BSNL.
After thus intentionally damaging BSNL's development, the Government appointed Sam Pitroda Committee to recommend how to improve BSNL, which is nothing but a cruel joke. The Sam Pitroda Committee recommended that the BSNL should work like a Private Company, should disinvest 30% of its shares, should bring in a strategic partner from private sector, should bring its top level managers from private sector, should remove one lakh employees by VRS and transfer, should create a subsidiary company in collaboration with a real estate company for utilizing its valuable vacant lands(25 lakh square meters in 7 big cities), and to procure equipment through managed services method(handing over entire work of installation and maintenance of the network to the vendor) etc. This is nothing but privatizing BSNL in quick instalments and handing over the valuable national assets of BSNL at throw away price to the Indian big capitalists and their foreign collaborators.
The BSNL should continue as a wholly owned Government of India enterprise carrying out social responsibility in the interest of the nation and also as a profitable and vibrant undertaking. The Government should compensate BSNL for the losses incurred by it for carrying out the social responsibility in the telecom sector.
All the trade unions and Associations of Non-Executives and Executives in BSNL have come together under the banner of Joint Action Committee and are fighting against this conspiracy and decided to go on a 3 days strike from 19th -21st October, 2010. This struggle requires the support of all the democratic and progressive forces in the country.
-----P.Asokababu
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