BSNL clears February salaries of employees: CMD

State-run telecom firm BSNL said Friday the pending February salaries of its 1.76 lakh employees have been cleared.

The company also announced the launch of various schemes to increase its market share and revenue.

"We have disbursed salary of all employees that was pending for the month of February. BSNL employees have ensured that customers services run uninterrupted despite issues that they were facing. Now we will aggressively focus on increasing our market share and revenue with attractive schemes," BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava told PTI.

The BSNL CMD Thursday had said that the telco was using internal accruals of Rs 850 crore to clear the February salary.

He had stressed that with the telecom department's support, there would be no delay in salary disbursement in coming months.

BSNL Friday announced free voice call on its 'Wings' mobile app and free broadband services for a period of 30 days to attract new customers.

Under the scheme, BSNL landline and mobile customers can make unlimited calls across India for free for a period of 30 days through its Wing mobile application and make calls to any landline or mobile number in India for Rs 1.2 per minute when they are travelling abroad.

"The Wings app annual activation charge is Rs 1,100 but we are giving it to all students at 20 per cent discount, all central and state government at 50 per cent discount and BSNL employees for 75 per cent discount," BSNL Wings (OSD) AK Jain said.

Post the free offer, Wings users can make calls using any wifi network and will need to pay as per their landline or mobile subscription plan.

BSNL customers can divert incoming calls on their landline or mobile phone to the Wings app.

"We are not charging money for diverting calls to the app," Jain said.

Besides voice calls, the state-run firm announced free broadband service for its landline and new customers for 30 days. Under the offer, customers availing broadband connection will get 5Gb per day data.

Though the scheme is not applicable for existing broadband customers, the company has announced "25 per cent cash back and Amazon prime subscription for a year on zero cost" for them.

Amid tariff war fuelled by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio, BSNL is the only company, apart from Jio, that gained new customers in mobile segment, according to the Trai data.

The company, however, had been losing landline customers and expects new schemes to check the decline.