State-owned telecom service operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is seeking Rs 12,000 crore from the central government towards one-time compensation package to the employees opting for its voluntary retirement scheme (VRS), according to RK Upadhyay, chairman and managing director.
“The total cost of the VRS, designed to revive the loss-making company, works out to Rs 16,000 crore if 100,000 employees opt for it. I think approximately Rs 12,000 crore is required to be given by the government and the remaining Rs 4,000-odd crore will be borne by the company,” Upadhyay told mediapersons here on Friday.
Employee costs account for 48 per cent of the public sector undertaking (PSU). The VRS will not only help in saving 15-16 per cent of the company’s revenues but will also give the flexibility of recruiting young workforce who can adopt to new technologies or outsource some of its services, he said.
Upadhyay said the company had charted out plans to wipe out its losses in the next two to three years. “This year, we hope to keep our losses at least at the same level as last year's if not less,” he added.
BSNL’s losses have more than tripled to about Rs 6,000 crore during 2010-11, primarily on account of hefty outgo for employees’ salaries and expenses borne by the PSU for procuring 3G and BWA spectrum. The company had registered a net loss of Rs 1,823 crore during 2009-10.
He said the zero-debt company paid in excess of Rs 19,000 crore to the government by way of spectrum charges and it was expecting around Rs 6,000 crore from the government in return to the spectrum surrender.
BSNL, which for the last three years had received Rs 2,000 crore per year from the government under the Universal Service Obligation Fund towards its commercially non-viable operations, is also looking at requesting the Centre to continue the same.
“The Rs 2,000-crore government contribution ended in July 2011. We have taken up the case and the government is considering. We do expect that pretty soon ... and it is not a bailout package,” Upadhyay said while ruling out any possibility of seeking a bailout scheme from the government.
To achieve a turnaround, Upadhyay said, BSNL was looking at new revenue streams, which include commercialising its idle lands across the country in a public-private-partnership mode.
“We have enormous land bank, which came under the BSNL fold through a memorandum of understanding with the Centre in 2001. Now, the government is evaluating options on how to formally hand over this land to us. This land has been given to us for a specific purpose of offering telecom and IT services. So, we will go in for giving the land or buildings that are idle to KPOs, BPOs and call centres,” he said.
On the litigations surrounding the orders for GSM lines, Upadhyay said the tender for 14.7 million GSM lines had already been opened through an e-tendering process and that both technical and financial bids had been submitted to the government.
“Technical bids have been opened and we hope to complete the technical evaluation in about 7-10 days from now. Then, we will be in a position to go for the financial bids, which probably will come to a conclusion within the next three-four weeks. We estimate the cost of the single-quantity tender to be around Rs 5,000 crore, funds for which will be raised from banks,” he added.
