Telecom services across the country could suffer, with the Department of Telecom all set to recall over 2,200 of its top technical officers on deputation in telecom PSUs MTNL and BSNL for deployment in a surplus cell.
The move to put these officers in the surplus cell is likely as a proposal to absorb these officers in the two PSUs - Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd -- has hit a roadblock.
Although officers of the Indian Telecom Services Association have ruled out any agitation over this, they said: "We want to clarify that DoT's action is an attempt to justify their unilateral and draconian actions and is trying to portray our association to be resorting to agitation."
"We suspect that a section of the bureaucracy in the DoT and some private business houses may be influencing DoT's action to destabilise the two top telecom PSUs," ITSA president S S Sirohi told PTI.
The association has appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to save MTNL and BSNL by intervening and directing DoT to honour constitutional provisions, court orders and norms of good governance.
With DoT planning to implement a contingency plan of recalling retired officials from DoT, MTNL and BSNL, Sirohi said it is unfortunate that such a move is being considered.
Most of the retired officials are now working with private operators and in such a scenario they would be serving their interests and not of MTNL and BSNL.
In fact, some of the officials have already cleaned up their offices in BSNL and preparing themselves to face the situation.
"We have rejected the new offer made by DoT supposedly approved by the Union Cabinet as it fails to address serious concerns of our officers and vital issues of protection of our existing service conditions," Sirohi said.
"Despite our reasonable demands, DoT has adopted non-conciliatory and adamant posture and is going ahead with coercive action plan," he added.
The problem has taken a toll on the senior officials working currently in DoT, as they have been asked to opt for either MTNL or BSNL otherwise they shall be put in the surplus cell. DoT had given a deadline of October 10 to ITSA to give their acceptance to the package offered by government and decide on the absorption.
Sirohi said they have to 'understand the reasons for such an adamant attitude of DoT for the gross injustice being meted out to the most experienced and qualified professionals.' This needs to be looked into very seriously, he added.