Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) want their ex-employees back. Both the telecom operators have sought for the Department of Telecommunications (DoT’s) permission to rehire their employees who left the telco under the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS). According to a report from the IndianExpress, the state-run telcos want these employees to come back in the capacity of consultants.
BSNL and MTNL Facing Employee Shortage Issue
Both BSNL and MTNL are facing employee shortage issues because of operational losses. Approximately 93,000 employees from both companies left under the VRS last year. But due to employee shortage, several field and attached offices have approached the telecom department to seek its permission for whether employees who left under the VRS can be hired back as consultants. The DoT has asked the offices to hold the move and not hire the old employees back right away. This matter will be discussed extensively in the DoT Headquarters (HQ), and later proper guidelines will be released whenever the decision is taken. The Central government had announced the VRS back in 2019 to help in cutting down the wage expenses of both the state-run telcos. With the scheme, BSNL’s wage expenses were expected to be cut by 50%, whereas MTNL’s wage expenses were expected to be cut by 75%. More than 50% of the workforce of BSNL had opted to retire voluntarily, while 80% of MTNL’s workforce had chosen to retire voluntarily. As per an old statement from the telecom department, most of the employees who chose to retire voluntarily were non-executive officers. Further, the employees who left the company were mostly between 55-60 years of age. If a BSNL or MTNL employee chose to leave the company under VRS, he/she would get 35 days of salary for each year of service already completed and further 25 days of salary for each year he/she had left until retirement. The amount to the employees was to be paid in two instalments. The first 50% of the total amount was to be paid in the FY2020-21 and the second instalment in the FY2021-22. The second instalment payment has been delayed to the employees owing to the expenditure costs that the telco had to incur because of the COVID-19 slowdown.
