BSNL staff salaries for June have been paid: Prasad

Cash-strapped Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has made staff salary payments for the month of June, and casual labourers and temporary workers in the state-owned corporation too are being paid wages "regularly", Parliament was informed on Thursday.

The PSU has been asked to take steps to improve performance and increase revenue while controlling expenses, Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Further, letter of comfort has been given from time to time to BSNL for raising loans to meet its requirements, he added.

"Salary of June 2019 has already been paid to its employees by BSNL. BSNL has also informed that casual labourers and temporary status mazdoors (daily-wager) in BSNL are being paid wages regularly," the minister said.

Stating that there were some delay in the payment of wages for the month of February, 2019, the minister added that the salaries are being paid regularly.

In a separate query on the same issue, the minister said that BSNL has informed that it is facing liquidity crunch due to mismatch in revenue and expenditure. However, maximum efforts are being made by BSNL to meet the requirement of operation and maintenance of services.

To another question, the minister said that net worth of BSNL stood at Rs 34,276 crore (unaudited and provisional), while Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) had a negative networth of Rs 9,735 crore as on April 1, 2019.