BSNL okays laying off 54K staff but will wait: Govt
New Delhi: The board of the state-run telecom services provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has accepted a proposal to lay off close to 54,000 employees and is said to be waiting for elections to get over before taking the final call.
Sources close to the development said that at its March meeting, the BSNL board approved three out of 10 suggestions put forth by an expert panel set up by the government.
However, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is unlikely to implement the layoff proposal until the elections are over. The officials are waiting for the new government to take a final call on this issue. “Announcing the VRS package or job cuts and shutting down businesses of the telecom firm would have huge implications on employees and ongoing elections. DoT decided to wait and watch,” sources in DoT said.
Among the recommendations that were approved by the board are a reduction of retirement age from the present 60 years to 58 years, Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) for all employees aged 50 and above, and expediting the allocation of 4G spectrum to BSNL.
The decision on retirement age and VRS will see the exit of around 54,451 BSNL employees, which is 31% of its 174,312-strong workforce.
The move to trim the retirement age alone will reduce the employee count by 33,568 employees. With this move, BSNL is expected to save a total of Rs 13,895 crore over the next six years on the wage bill. VRS, on the other hand, will result in annual savings in the range of Rs 1,671 crore to Rs 1,921.24 crore. It is estimated that VRS will cost the company about Rs 13,049 crore.
The average age of the BSNL workforce is estimated to be above 55 years.
Since DoT already asked Trai to examine the issue of allotting 4G spectrum to MTNL and BSNL, the decision on the fate of both the telecom firms will be decided after Trai’s comments, the sources added.
After BSNL’s losses began to mount, the government had set up a three-member panel for its revival, which included Prof Rekha Jain (co-ordinator), Prof Vishal Gupta and Professor Ajay Pandey — all professors at Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A).
The state-run corporation has been reeling under financial stress after the advent of Jio. The company’s revenues dipped by 20% during 2017-18, on the back of predatory pricing unleashed by Mukesh Ambani-owned Jio. The company clocked Rs 25,071 crore in revenues during 2017-18, as against Rs 31,533 crore in 2016-17. Currently, the company is carrying a loss of Rs 7,993 crore during 2017-18, up 66% over the previous year.
Courtesy: www.deccanherald.com
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Sadiq Khan wins record third term as Mayor of London
London (PTI): Sadiq Khan on Saturday registered a decisive victory to secure a record third term as Mayor of London, as the local election results from England and Wales continued to reflect a strong swing in favour of the Opposition Labour Party.
The 53-year-old Pakistani-origin Labour candidate secured a massive 10,88,225 votes with a 43.8 per cent vote share, well ahead of the Conservative candidate Susan Hall’s 8,12,397 votes – an impressive majority of over 2,75,000.
Delhi-born businessman Tarun Ghulati, contesting as an independent candidate among a total 13 mayoral candidates, secured 24,702 votes and came in tenth in the overall tally.
“I am beyond humbled right now and express my deep gratitude to my fellow Londoners, and make this pledge to you: I promise to repay the trust you’ve placed in me by working tirelessly to deliver the fairer, safer and greener, London you deserve,” said Khan in his acceptance speech from the London mayoral headquarters of City Hall.
“It’s been a difficult few months, we faced a campaign of non-stop negativity, but I couldn’t be more proud that we answered fear mongering with facts, hate with hope, and attempts to divide with efforts to unite. We ran a campaign that was in keeping with the spirit and values of this great city, a city that regards our diversity, not as a weakness, but an almighty strength,” he said, taking aim at some of the rhetoric from the Opposition.
“It is truly an honour to be elected for a third term and to do so with record levels of support from Londoners, with an increased margin of victory. But today’s not about making history, it’s about shaping our future,” he added.
Earlier, Khan’s own camp and the BBC had already called the election in favour of Khan as borough-wise results poured in for the UK capital to show that he was on course to beat his nearest Conservative Party rival, Susan Hall, with a strong voter swing in favour of Labour.
Significantly, the UK capital’s Muslim population did not seem to have punished the Labour Mayor for his party’s failure to strongly condemn Israel over the Gaza conflict in the same way as other parts of the country had. Some of Khan’s controversial policies, such as the high costs on drivers of vehicles falling under the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) tariff bracket as part of his anti-pollution drive for London, also did not result in a major dent in his overall popularity.
“Sadiq Khan was absolutely the right candidate. He has got two terms of delivery behind him and I am confident that he has got another term of delivery in front of him,” said Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer just before the results were declared.
The role of London Mayor represents the 8.9 million people living across the capital and has a budget of GBP 20.4 billion and is responsible for Transport for London (TfL) and has some control over roads, policing and housing in the city. Londoners also went to the polls on Thursday to vote for one of 14 local representatives on the London Assembly and 11 London wide Assembly members who hold the Mayor of London accountable.
The Labour Party continued its winning streak in most of the local elections, seen as reflective of the electorate’s mood ahead of a general election expected later this year. Popular Labour incumbent Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham was re-elected with 63 per cent of the vote, who committed to get right back to work to see through his transport reforms and called for more powers over welfare and housing.
“I am ready to fight harder than I have ever fought for anything before, for a Greater Manchester where people can live free from the fear of debt, hunger and eviction, and where everyone is set up to benefit from the growing success of our city region today,” said Burnham in his victory speech.
Earlier, the party won the Liverpool City Region and South Yorkshire mayoral races, the North East mayoralty, as well as the brand-new mayoralty of East Midlands.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was handed a glimmer of hope on Friday with Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen retaining the seat for the Conservatives, will be hoping Birmingham’s Tory Mayor Andy Street is able to win a contest that has been on a knife-edge between the Conservatives and Labour – with a recount ordered due to the results being too close to call.
However, any immediate manoeuvres by the Tory rebels to try and challenge Sunak’s leadership seems to have been averted for the moment as there isn’t much appetite for another upheaval in the party ranks.
An analysis of the local election results by BBC’s polling expert Professor John Curtice suggests that Labour is now in pole position to win the general election, with the local elections extrapolated to a national level giving the Opposition a comfortable lead.
