BSNL Engineers to go on hunger strike from 3rd February 2014

Graduate engineers and Account officers of state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) serve notice for indefinite hunger fast from 3rd Februar 2014 against the breach of trust and non-resolution of very basic issues in respect of direct recruited executives of BSNL.   All graduates that were recruited directly by BSNL after its formation in 2000 as JTOs and JAOs will go for indefinite hunger from 3rd February unless demands are met. BSNL’s Graduate Engineers & Account Officers association AIGETOA launched a countrywide protest in the month of Aug-2013. After a long protest of more than 20 days including massDharna for 12 days at Jantar -Mantar New Delhi, this association called off the protest when management agreed in writing to resolve the issues as per DPE/DoT/GoI guidelines in a time bound manner within a time frame of 2 to 3 months. As BSNL management fail to bring any solution for long pending demands, BSNL engineers now plan to go on strike. What we can say is Ghost of Strike is back in BSNL, which is facing tough time.

Strike in such a time when government is expecting turnaround by 1918 will definitely hurt BSNL and Subscribers. Hope BSNL management will come to some solution by 1st week of February as revival of BSNL with these Young Engineers is beyond imagination. State owned telecom operator BSNL has reported a loss of Rs 7,884 crore for the financial year 2012-13 (FY-13). This was BSNL’s fourth straight loss making fiscal, although the losses have improved 10.93% from Rs 8,851 crore loss in the previous fiscal FY-12. The telco had last reported a profit in the fiscal FY-09, where it had reported a profit of Rs 575 crore. In subsequent years, it has reported losses of Rs 1,823 crore in FY-10 and Rs 6,384 crore in FY-11.