BSNL employees express strong displeasure against the monetisation of telecom assets by the Government. Active demonstrations were held in protest.

Earlier the Indian Government had declared its willingness for the partial sale of 2.86 lakh km of Bharat Net optical fibre and 14,917 mobile towers under BSNL & MTNL. As per the NMP report, Rs 35,100 crore was to be realised by the sale.

The BSNL Employee Union has expressed strong displeasure at this move. According to them, this is a move that will mark the beginning of the privatisation of BSNL-MTNL. They believe that once this partial sale has been successfully conducted, the next target will be the 7-lakh km optic fibre length.

“In the name of National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), the government has decided to hand over the national assets at a throwaway price to the corporates.

“The argument of the government that the ownership of these assets will continue to remain with the government itself is nothing but a sugar-coated poison,” BSNL EU stated.

The BSNL Union authorities further hinted that the progress of the Bharat Net project was deliberately delayed by the Modi Government with this plan in mind. They claim that this will be a severe blow to both BSNL as well as MTNL.

We are opposing this move (monetisation) strongly. The sole beneficiaries will be private corporations only, P Abhimanyu, BSNL Employee Union General Secretary emphasised .

Across India, all the BSNL Employees were asked to stage their protest by lunch hour demonstrations on Friday to express their opposition. The Union believes that handing over the national wealth to corporates is not a sound decision and should be stopped at any cost.