The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited employees, including executives and non-executives, were annoyed over the provision of 15 different allowances extended to officials qualified with the Indian Telecom Service.
M. Jayamurugan, circle organising secretary of the BSNL Employees' Union, Tuticorin, said here on Saturday that while many employees had been working on a permanent basis were not provided with such financial benefits, the officers under the ITS category, who had been working on deputation and not been absorbed by the company until now, were allowed to enjoy such benefits.
The company would incur an expenditure of Rs.1,300 crore every year to extend all such allowances to the ITS officials. It was unfair and unjust. Even after the directive from the Department of Public Enterprises, the BSNL administration failed to hike industrial dearness allowance to 78.2 per cent, he said.
At present only 68.8 per cent allowance is being provided but all other public sector enterprises were provided with such benefits. As per guidelines, the allowance with merger of pay scale should have been increased from January 1, 2007, but the administrators had just ignored the employees citing financial crisis.
To condemn this partial attitude among the employees, members affiliated to the union would stage a dharna on June 6 and if the administration had failed to fulfil the demand, the members would stage an indefinite strike, he added.
