Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited employees and executives across the country will go on a strike on July 11 to press the government to immediately place the purchase order for the 45.5 million GSM contract to the selected vendors.
In case the issue was not settled soon, the strike would be indefinite, the Joint Forum of BSNL and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited unions said.
In another statement, the forum opposed government's reported proposal to reduce the original GSM tender by half, saying it would result in BSNL lagging in competition.
Quoting media reports, the forum said private operators would take advantage with the new 3G technology grabbing the present and future subscribers.
Reducing the order by 50 per cent, as media reports suggested, would adversely
affect BSNL's capacity to provide sufficient connections, it said.
"Such a modification and reduction is not at all acceptable to staff unions", V A N Namboodiri, convener of the Joint Forum, said. The Forum had earlier said BSNL could lose Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) if the GSM tender was re-issued. The two-month delay in procuring equipments has already caused a huge loss to BSNL.
The company's rank in terms of mobile subscriber base has come down to fourth from second a few months ago. In the last two months, BSNL has lost about Rs 110 crore (Rs 1.1 billion) revenue due to the delay, he had said.
Communications Minister A Raja has reportedly asked BSNL to renegotiate the tender price from $107 a line to below $100, which the lowest bidder Ericsson is believed to have opposed.