Minister Manoj Sinha cautions BSNL employees to work harder to compete with private players

In the backdrop of rising competition from the private players, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha asked the employees of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) to roll up their sleeves and work harder. The employees who fail to perform should take VRS, Minister said at BSNL’s Heads of Circle Conference held on Tuesday.

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The warning was cited while mentioning the issue of providing rural connectivity, reported Economic Times and Business Standard. Minister Sinha said that no delay will be tolerated in connecting 100,000 gram panchayats with optical fiber in the preset schedule, March 2017. The Government targets to complete the rural connectivity in gram panchayats by December 2018.

“Those who are working with zeal should be rewarded. And officials from areas where reports of negative growth are coming should take VRS,” Minister said. In the conference, he also spoke about the possibility of implementing “performance related pay” for BSNL and asked the Telecom secretary to discuss the matter. “Good workers need to be certainly rewarded…but the mindset that salary will come on the first day of the month whether or not work is done…one needs to come out of that mindset,” he said.

“I was looking at your progress report…there are many areas where there is a negative growth…there is no need for such people to remain…if these people responsible for negative growth remain for a long time, then BSNL cannot progress or improve,” he added.

Telecom Secretary J. S. Deepak noted that BSNL is consistently performing well since April 2015 by reporting operating profit and gaining market share. The state-run operator’s revenue in 2015-2016 was Rs. 28, 450 crores, a 4.4% increase from the previous year. BSNL CMD Anupam Srivastav also said that the operator has installed 26,000 mobile towers in the last two years and in this financial year, it plans to install 20,000 additional towers.