MTNL offers VRS to over 1900

State-owned MTNL, dogged by a flabby workforce and tremendous pressure from unions against job cuts, has achieved a virtual feat by successfully offering voluntary retirement to over 1900 employees.

MTNL in the past had made several attempts to introduce VRS but could not implement it due to resistance from employees' association in the C and D group.

With the VRS, MTNL's workforce has come down to over 52,000 and that of Group C and D employees to about 42,000.

"We are happy that we successfully completed the first round of VRS. About 525 employees from Group C and D took retirement in Delhi and over 1400 in Mumbai," MTNL CMD R S P Sinha said.

Asked about future plans and the next round of VRS, he said "it is not in the near future. We could plan it in the next financial year.

"No doubt that MTNL has about 20 per cent extra workforce. We are trying to leverage it in two ways – by increasing the turnover/revenue from our operations and secondly by offering attractive VRS ensuring that they are not at disadvantage," Sinha said.

"We want even our retired employees to be happy," he said.

Talking about the 'attractive' VRS, he said the employees have been offered two months salary for each completed year of service and in the process "we have given them the benefit of employees' stint in the department of telecommunication".