BSNL employees succeeded grandly as the government approved to their diverse demands. The (AUAB) All Unions and Associations of BSNL, elaborated on the various issues raised in a meeting with the DoT, i.e., Department of Telecom and Manoj Sinha, who is the present Minister of State for Telecommunication.
1. DoT had written to the Ministry of Finance, told Sinha, with an affirmative recommendation, to solve the issue of the Payment of Pension Contribution, keeping the real basic payment as the centre to which the reconciling response is awaited.
2. AUAB claimed that Pension Revision is not in any way linked to pay revision or BSNL’s affordability. DoT agreed to this and the demand of unlinking the pension revision from the Pay Revision of the serving workers. This achievement will reinforce the employees’ insistence for Pay Revision with complete addition of 15%. Immediately after the strikes by AUAB, DoT had right away started taking serious moves towards this subject.
3. Till now, the DoT had been taking an unhelpful stand on BSNL employees that they cannot be given revision of wages. On 3rd Pay Revision issue, which still didn’t reach its final destination, there is major development on this issue. In the meeting, both officers of DoT and Sinha has seemed to suggest that, they were ready to think upon settling 3rd Pay Revision, but then 15% fitment cannot be provided.
4. On 2nd PRC pending issue, BSNL CMD agreed to boost the payment by another 3% by March 2019 and remaining in the next financial year, AUAB meeting.
5. An accord was made to have a new institutional mechanism in DoT. This was to observe the progress on various demands and accordingly, AUAB will cyclically sit with the DoT officers and re-evaluate the development on various issues.
6. The Cabinet Note for assigning a 4G spectrum to BSNL was previously made by Dot, and just after that, the notice was made a subject for the strike, sent for Inter-Ministerial Consultation. DoT’s secretary said that after process’s completion, the issue will be taken to the next Cabinet meet to get approval.