Revival of BSNL & MTNL: Employees retired during last three years and expenditure thereon

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF  COMMUNICATIONS
AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

LOK SABHA

UNSTARRED QUESTION NO  593

ANSWERED ON  07.08.2013

593 .       Shri S.
RAMASUBBU, SANJAY SINH, M. ANJAN KUMAR YADAV

E.G. SUGAVANAM, P . C. MOHAN, PRABHAKAR PONNAM, SUPRIYA SULE

SANJEEV GANESH NAIK, JEETENDRA SINGH BUNDELA

Will the Minister of  COMMUNICATIONS
AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state:-

(a) the number of existing employees in Bharat Sanchar Nigam
Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and employees
superannuated and taken voluntary retirement during the last three years along
with the expenditure incurred on salaries/ retirement/VRS benefits during the
said period;

(b) whether
the Government has conducted any review of performance of management and
enquiry of wasteful expenditure in these two PSUs;

(c) if so, the outcome thereof and the action taken by the
Government in this regard;

(d) whether
the Government has appointed Group of Ministers (GoM) to discuss ways to revive
BSNL & MTNL;

(e) so the details thereof; and

(f) the
details of steps taken by the Government for their revival and increasing
revenue and reducing their wage bills and administrative expenditure?

ANSWER

THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (DR.(SMT.) KILLI KRUPARANI)

(a)          The number
of employees in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone
Nigam Limited (MTNL) as on 30.6.2013 are as follows:

The details regarding number of employees
superannuated/taken voluntary retirement and the expenditure incurred on
salaries/retirement/voluntary retirement benefits during the last three years
is given below:

BSNL

MTNL

(b), (c) & (f) While the Department of
Telecommunications (DoT) and the senior management of BSNL and MTNL review the
performance of these PSUs regularly in respect of the commitments made in
annual Memorandum of Understanding signed by these PSUs with DoT, BSNL and MTNL
have taken the following steps for their revival and increasing revenue and
reducing their wage bills and administrative expenditure:

Steps taken by BSNL

#             Efforts
to strengthen stable revenue streams through concerted focus on broadband, Next
Generation Network (NGN) voice and enterprise business with major focus on
Government projects.

#             Focus on
the revenue of top 100 Cities for monitoring purpose.

#             More
focus on customer care, service delivery, & service assurance, revenue
management and maintenance of assets on decentralized basis.

#             Value
based management for all investment activities thereby undertaking only those
projects which adds value to the organization.

#             Progressive
migration of BSNL’s current network to Next Generation Network thereby ensuring
convergence, consolidation and seamless delivery of various services to end
customers across different technologies.

Steps taken by MTNL

#             All
exchanges have been made digital to improve service quality.

#             Rehabilitation
of outdoor network is being done on continuous basis to reduce fault rate and
Mean Time to Repair (MTTR).

#             MTNL
reviews its tariffs for various products and services so as to make them
customer friendly and to suit various segments of the society.

#             MTNL has
taken measures to facilitate easy payment of telephone bills.

#             MTNL
introduced a Loyalty scheme and ensure special care of corporate customers.

#             Online
booking of different services and complaints for Landline, Mobile and Broadband
now available.

#             MTNL
organises Sanchar Haats in Delhi and Customer Service Centers (CSCs) at Mumbai,
where customers can get various services like registration for new service,
duplicate bills of cellular connection, bill payment, VCC (Virtual Calling
Card) etc.

(d) & (e) Government of India has constituted a Group of
Ministers (GoM) on 28.05.2013 to look into the Matter of Reviving and
Revitalising Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam
Limited (MTNL). The GoM has been meeting to deliberate on short-term, medium
term and long-term measures for revival and revitalization of BSNL and MTNL
including enabling a human resource strategy to match the business environment
and operational requirements.

Source: Loksabha Q&A

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