Distressed employees of MTNL on Monday protested in front of Sanchar Bhawan, which houses the department of telecommunications, and also tried to meet Communications minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. However, they failed to meet the minister as he was busy in Parliament.
MTNL employees have not got salaries for the past two months. Sources in the telco said that the company was trying to arrange the salaries through collection of dues but it won’t suffice the salary of its 22,000 staff for two months.
“The government should provide some kind of support as our loan of `500 crore has also not being approved yet,” said an official aware of the situation.
Apart from MTNL, the staff of BSNL haven’t got salaries for July. Usually, salary is credited to their accounts on the last date of every month. But, this is the second time that the two state-run telecom companies have defaulted on payment of salaries. In February, too, the salary was delayed and the backlog was cleared in mid-March.
The salary bill of MTNL comprises over 90% of its revenues while that of BSNL is 77%. Salary delay was expected as both the firms have not been able to generate enough revenue and the government is yet to clear a revival proposal. In case of MTNL, revenues are in the tune of `190 crore per month but expenditure for basic functions and salary outgo are pegged at `275 crore.