Employees of BSNL and MTNL will have to wait for some more time before they can avail the voluntary retirement schemes (VRS) proposed by the state-run firms' as the Telecom Ministry has not yet taken a final call on their demend for financial support.
"BSNL has formulated a proposal, that is something on which view has not been taken. There is obviously major financial obligation involved. That needs to be seen before any view is taken," Telecom Secretary R Chandrasekhar said on the sidelines of the Skoch summit here today.
"It (VRS) is not going to be possible in this fiscal. MTNL has also worked out a proposal, but it is a different proposal because MTNL and BSNL are not in identical footing. I don't think any timeframe can be set for that," he added.
Both BSNL and MTNL had submitted a proposal duly approved by their respective boards to seek financial support from the government for implementation of the VRS.
MTNL had submitted a proposal seeking 100% financial support from the government for bringing out a cadre-specific VRS for MTNL employees.
Similarly, BSNL had submitted a proposal seeking nearly Rs 18,000 crore from the Department of Telecom (DoT) to enable a VRS for its huge workforce.
The VRS has been under discussion since 2009, when a panel headed by Sam Pitroda, adviser to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations, pitched for BSNL to take the VRS route to prune its nearly 2.77 lakh-strong workforce by a third.
BSNL offers telecom services in all areas of the country, barring Delhi and Mumbai, where its peer MTNL offers services.
Meanwhile, on implementation of the National Broadband Plan, Chandrasekhar said, "We expect to set up the special proposed vehicle (SPV) in next two months. Initially, the SPV will be set up with government equity and then PSUs will be inducted.