VRS for MTNL employees on cards

The public sector telecom firm has been posting losses since 2009

GN Bureau | November 7, 2016


#communication ministry   #cabinet   #PK Purwar   #DoT   #VRS   #MTNL  


 The ministry of communication may soon seek cabinet approval to offer a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) to state-run telecom operator Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL). 

The VRS amounting to Rs 1,000 crore will help the company to cut down high staff cost. About 5,000 employees of MTNL will take VRS, which is about 18% of total employee base. The proposal has already been approved by the telecom commission, the highest policymaking body of the department of telecommunications (DoT). 
 
 MTNL, which offers telecom services only in Delhi and Mumbai, has been struggling to survive in a highly competitive market. It plans to invest Rs 2,500 crore over next two-three years to expand and upgrade its network.
 
 The development comes days after P.K. Purwar was appointed as the chairman and managing director (CMD) of MTNL for five years. He was earlier holding the additional charge. Once VRS is implemented, it could save Rs 400-500 crore every year for MTNL and free up certain resources for making more investments in the network, according to the news report published in VCCircle.com.
 
 In July, after a gap of more than two years, the government had started the process to select CMD for MTNL. The company had been without a full-time CMD since May 30, 2014, when A.K. Garg retired from the post. 
 
The public sector telecom firm has been posting losses since 2009-10. For the June quarter this year, it posted a loss of Rs 718.02 crore compared with Rs 734.24 crore in the same period last year. The total income declined by 4.5% to Rs 744.72 crore this June quarter from Rs 780.12 crore in the same quarter a year ago.
 

Comments

 

Other News

Wired for good: Building sustainable cities with AI

The First Industrial Revolution in the 18th-19th centuries ushered in a paradigm shift in how cities were imagined. Fueled by railways, factories and grids, and obsessed with speed and scale, it was an ode to efficiency, which spurred unprecedented economic growth. Now, as the Fourth Industrial Revolutio

How social media is reshaping elections

Since Brazil’s return to direct presidential elections in 1985, no candidate who finished second in the first round of polling had ever won the presidency. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, now 81, has just done it. What explains the comeback, and what changed in Brazilian politics to make it possi

Cabinet approves Dearness Allowance, Dearness Relief

The union cabinet chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved the release of an additional instalment of Dearness Allowance (DA) to central government employees and Dearness Relief (DR) to pensioners with effect from 01.07.2026 representing an increase of 3% over the existing rates of 6

Cyclone Arnab strikes Andhra as warming oceans amplify storm risks

Cyclone Arnab made landfall along the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coasts in the early hours of Wednesday as a very severe cyclonic storm, with maximum sustained wind speeds of 125–135 kmph and gusts reaching 150 kmph. Its rapid intensification has raised concerns about how warmer oceans, global warmin

Counting matters but which ones?

The first instinct of public policy is to count. Its harder task is to count what counts. We have become remarkably good at measuring the reach of the welfare state vis-à-vis beneficiaries covered, rupees transferred, houses built, connections installed and services delivered. But some of the most

Inching closer to a trade deal with America

The cooperation between India and the United States goes back quite a time. We need to relegate that era to the backburner when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru visited US in the times of president Dwight Eisenhower and called the American let-off of 10 million dollars in defence aid to Pakistan as a “gun w

Upcoming Conferences



-->

Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter