BSNL agitation cripples Gujarat telecom links

Commercial activity in Gujarat was dealt a major blow on Thursday on account of the strike observed by a large section of employees of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL).

BSNL landline phones were also disrupted for eight hours across Gujarat. People were also unable to connect to cell phone users from any BSNL's fixed telephones. This led to a lot of congestion in the other telecom networks as well.

Cellular phones used in the Sachivalaya, the Chief Minister's Office in Gandhinagar, police stations and industrial manufacturing units did not ring since this morning in spite of several attempts by callers dialing from BSNL telephones.

D K Agrawal, principal general manager, BSNL (Gujarat Circle), said: "As one-third of our employees went on an agitation, BSNL phone lines were disrupted on Thursday."

On whether lines would come alive by night, Agrawal said that it's difficult to say at this juncture as executives agitation might continue for few more days.

Ashok Kumar Bhandari, ITS, chief general manager, BSNL, said: "We can't do anything as this is management level problem and they have to sort it out with mutual understanding."

Meanwhile, 700 members of the United Forum for the BSNL Executives held agitation at BSNL here on Thursday.

Their demands include implementation of non-post based time-bound promotions and implementation of promotion policy of 50,000 executives across the country.

Rakesh Mehta, joint secretary Sanchar Nigam Executive Association said group-B employees of the department of telecommunication, absorbed into the BSNL, were earlier promised that their pay scales would be reviewed after every four years.

However, there has been no response from the management and the management not implemented the written agreement and policy. He further said that promotions should be considered from October 1, 2000 but the management refrained from taking any parallel promotion.