Communist Party of India (CPI) State secretary D. Pandian flayed the telecom policy that has encouraged foreign companies to sell their products and technology, even as it wanted to send home thousands of employees of the public sector BSNL. Addressing a conference of here on Friday, he said that mobile phone major Nokia from Finland with a population of 70 lakh people was able to employ one crore persons. But, India with 110 crore people was dependent on foreign companies.
The right move would be to rope in domestic stalwarts such as N.R. Narayana Murthy (Infosys) and Azim Premji (Wipro) to develop the public sector telecom industry. “The foreign companies have taken away huge Indian money by way of selling their mobile phones.” He flayed the move to introduce voluntary retirement scheme in the PSU telecom companies.
Veteran All India Trade Union Congress leader G.L. Dhar said that the Centre had gone back on its promise to provide subsidy for taking telecommunication to the rural areasThe political bias against the BSNL had left the PSU telecom company, which had been making huge profits till recently, into a loss-making unit.
CPI State secretary Pandian, telecom policy, BSNL, N.R. Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, AITUC leader Dhar, PSU telecom company
