The government on Thursday set the ball rolling for the state-owned telecom major BSNL’s mega IPO, by offering its employees ownership rights in the company in the form of Esops valued at around Rs 2 lakh per head.

Though this didn’t provide an immediate breakthrough with the employee unions still unconvinced, communications and IT minister A Raja exuded confidence of eventually winning them over, stating that today only first round of talks were initiated and he looked forward to more healthy discussions between the two sides.

Raja said that he told the unions not to view the IPO as a dogma or a cult, but as a tool to make the company more transparent, accountable and efficient, which would lead to better growth.?”This was the first time I talked to the BSNL union on the issue of IPO after its board took a decision on the same last week. We have explained to them on how the IPO will benefit the company,” Raja said. “We still don’t think it is important for the company’s growth,” said VAN Namboodiri, general secretary BSNL employees union after the meeting. The BSNL board has offered a package to the unions, which consists providing them with shares. Each employee would get 500 shares at Rs 10 each, which would be listed between Rs 300-400. In this manner post-listing each employee would get shares worth around Rs 1.25-2 lakh.

BSNL chairman Kuldeep Goyal said there is no timeframe as to when the IPO will happen. “There is no immediate need for it but we are preparing the ground work already (and) we are seeing some positive reaction from the unions on the issue”. He said that the company is looking at a 10% equity dilution, which would fetch close to $10 billion as the company with 70 million subscribers has been valued at around $100 billion.

While the BSNL officials said that the company was in no hurry on the IPO it would try to evolve a consensus with the employees? and given the current market conditions, a little delay in the IPO would only fetch better valuation.