MTNL, BSNL face crisis over staff

Telecom services across the country may suffer, with the department of telecom all set to recall over 2,200 of its top technical executives on deputation to telecom PSUs MTNL and BSNL for deployment in a surplus cell.

The move to put these executives in the surplus cell is likely as a proposal to absorb them in the two PSUs has hit a roadblock.

Though the Indian Telecom Services Association (ITSA) has ruled out adopting an agitational path, it said: "We want to clarify that DoT's action is an attempt to justify its unilateral and draconian actions and it is trying to portray our association to be resorting to agitational means."

"We are suspecting that a section of the bureaucracy in the DoT and some private business houses may be influencing the DoT's action to destabilise the two top telecom PSUs," ITSA President SS Sirohi said.