Budget 2021-22: BSNL executives wary of Centre's privatisation move

 NEW DELHI: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) officers group Monday said that the Centre should keep the telco off the disinvestment plans as it operates in a strategic sector, and has immense potential to turn a corner, and should focus on faster revival with the commercial foray of fourth generation or 4G services.


"Niti Aayog should not think about disinvestment of BSNL. Government decided to revive it, and if 4G launch is taking place early, it will have a great potential to grow, and 5G can also be launched soon," K. Sebastin, Secretary-General of the Sanchar Nigam Executives’ Association (SNEA) told ETTelecom.

The comments from telco's executives body has come following the apprehensions over the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Union Budget 2021-22 address, indicating that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-headed NDA government was planning to maintain only 'bare minimum' public sector firms, and has asked the Niti Aayog to prepare a list of state-owned companies for disinvestment.

Amitabh Kant-headed Niti Aayog is the Centre's policy think-tank.

"In the Atmanirbhar package, I had announced that we will come out with a policy of strategic disinvestment of public sector enterprises. I am happy to inform the House that the government has approved the said policy," Sitharaman said during her Budget 2021-22 presentation address in the Parliament. .

She further said that the policy provides a clear roadmap for disinvestment in all nonstrategic and strategic sectors. "We have kept four areas that are strategic where bare minimum CPSEs will be maintained and rest privatised," the minister added.
The Union government, in its budgetary proposal, further said that "in strategic sectors, there would be a minimum presence of public sector enterprises," and the remaining state-owned firms in the strategic sector would be privatised or merged or subsidiarised with other CPSEs or closed.

However, telecommunications is one of the strategic sectors where the presence of a state-run entity remains strategically vital.

The recent sequence of events including BSNL's continued delay to launch next generation services, and mandating it to maintain Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited's (MTNL) Delhi and Mumbai networks, has made employees apprehensive, and that has led to a speculation that the government wanted to privatise the fourth-largest telecom carrier.

"BSNL is a strategic CPSU. For meeting social obligations of the government, it offers services during natural calamities, and provides telephony in far-flung areas. BSNL should remain as a strategic public sector firm in future also," Sebastin said, and added that the government should focus on its faster revival.

In October 2019, the Cabinet allowed a revival package of nearly Rs 70,000 crore for the two state-run companies, but according to the SNEA, the decisions that "could really revive the telco" are yet to be implemented.

Last month, BSNL had come up with a fresh notice inviting tender to procure telecom equipment to launch the next generation of network, after it had to scrap the one released in March 2020, following allegations of putting restrictive conditions.

Sebastin further said that BSNL has inherent strengths such as a robust network of optic fibre cable of close to 7 lakh route kilometres, and more than 66,000 telecom towers that, according to him would enable the telco revived in no time after launching commercial 4G services.

Last week, the BSNL Employee Union (BSNLEU) alleged that despite salary outgo coming down significantly after the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) opted by close to 50% of the workforce, the BSNL management failed to disburse wages on time, and its human resource (HR) policy was a disaster.

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