The move to disinvest the public sector Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has united all central trade unions once again and they have called an indefinite agitation from April 19 against the move.
The Department of Telecommunications had announced its decision to disinvest 30 per cent of shares of the PSU, based on the recommendations of the Sam Pitroda committee.
The trade unions were called by the DoT Secretary for talks this week over their opposition to the recommendations. We could not agree to anything at the meeting and the strike would be indefinite, says G L Dhar, Secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress.
The government has reiterated its decision to go ahead with disinvestment, besides accepting the other recommendations of the committee like a voluntary retirement scheme for 1,00,000 workers and breaking up the company, AITUC says. Pitroda is acting on behalf of private sector companies and is not taking into account the interests of BSNL, he says.
The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions expressed similar sentiments. Disinvestment of profit-making public sector enterprises has been one of the five issues on which trade unions have come together on a year-long path of agitation, the others being price rise, job losses, creation of a fund for unorganised workers
The joint action plan over these issues was devised by the nine unions at a 'national convention' of workers in the capital on September 14 last year and culminated in a nationwide agitation last month.
The BSNL indefinite strike would be the first united agitation after that.
M K Pandhe, national president of CITU, said the unions would fight the disinvestment and would not allow it at any cost.
Unions say the government is targeting 158 profit making PSUs out of the total of 243 PSUs. These profit making ones alone are making a profit of Rs 1000 billion (Rs 1,00,000 crore) and offer to government in taxes and dividends about Rs 1772.21 billion (Rs 1,77,221 crore).
Thus they account for almost half of the total revenue of the government of Rs 6822.12 billion (Rs 6,82,212 crore), says Pawan Kumar, president of the Bharat Mazdoor Sangh's all-India federation for organised sector workers.
The unions are now demanding that the government provide a white paper on how much of the disinvestment funds have so far been spent on reviving sick units, as it had promised to do. The telecom ministry is also said to be opposed to the recommendations of the Pitroda committee set up by the Prime Minister's Office to revive BSNL. It has also thrown up its hands over the funds required for implementing a VRS for 100,000 lakh employees.
