"BSNL has been running in losses to meet government's commitment. In year 2000, BSNL had cash of about Rs 40,000 crore but all the money has been taken by government in form of interest and spectrum price. Revival of BSNL is must for interest of consumers," Forum of BSNL Unions and Associations Convener VAN Namboodiri told PTI. The forum claims to represent over 2 lakh employees.
Consumers will be impacted only in case there are major issues like cable cut or where manpower is required, Namboodiri said.
He said the association has requested Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad five times to meet the union on this subject but is yet to get an appointment.
Namboodiri said that if BSNL fails then mobile call rates will go up in the range of Rs 10-16 as in foreign countries and it is because of BSNL mobile tariffs are at lower levels.
DoT Secretary Rakesh Garg has agreed to meet the unions on April 25.
"It is already five months since the Forum issued the strike notice. However, the DoT did not get time all these five months to hold talks with the Forum. Now, the DoT has invited the Forum for talks on 25th April. Despite this invitation, the Forum, in its meeting held today morning, decided to go ahead with the strike call," Namboodiri said.
He said the government has not paid it Rs 6,700 crore for the spectrum that company surrendered.
"An amount of Rs 1,250 crore, allotted to BSNL in lieu of access deficit charges for providing loss making connections for 2012-13, is still pending payment. We are losing about Rs 10,000 a year on rural landline connection just to meet government's commitment. If government bears the cost, BSNL will turn profitable," Namboodiri said.
The BSNL employees are also not against the merger of MTNL and BSNL but government should resolve liability of about Rs 20,000 that exists on MTNL and it should not be transferred on to BSNL. Also, government should buy back 45 per cent stake divested in MTNL before the merger, he added.