MTNL merger to bring ‘irreparable’ loss to BSNL revival, says Employee Union

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) employees group Wednesday said that the proposed merger between the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and BSNL would do “irreparable damage” to the Cabinet-approved revival plan for the latter.

In a letter dated, March 23, 2022, to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, BSNL Employee Union (BSNLEU) said, “the BSNL employees are genuinely concerned that the merger of MTNL with BSNL will certainly ruin the financial condition of the latter.”

Further, the group “fervently appealed to drop the proposal to merge MTNL with BSNL” and suggested that the government should take over MTNL’s debt amounting to Rs 26,000 crore, and should provide sufficient financial assistance to BSNL for the rehabilitation of the MTNL network.

Recently, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology also suggested the telecom department carve out MTNL’s debt and assets worth over Rs 26,500 crore into a special purpose vehicle (SPV) and recommended merging telcos operations with that of BSNL.

On Wednesday, the Minister of State for Communications said that there was “no delay or deficiency” in services provided by BSNL due to the VRS opted by its employees. Separately, the Centre is also planning to merge Sarvesh Singh-headed Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), a special purpose vehicle to deploy the BharatNet network nationwide with BSNL.

Recently, BSNL chairman Pravin Kumar Purwar said that the government has taken a policy decision to merge BBNL into BSNL, and added that the move would bring BBNL’s initiatives to BSNL.