Work remained disrupted in BSNL offices in the district with its executive and non-executive staff boycotting duties and holding a ‘mass dharna’ demanding the immediate repatriation of the ‘un-absorbed’ I.T.S (Indian Telecom Service) officers to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
The call for the nationwide dharna was given by the Central headquarters of the ‘Joint Forum of the BSNL Executives Associations and Non-Executive Unions to exert pressure on the Central government to repatriate those I.T.S. officers (nearly 1600 incumbents) who in spite of the four chances given to them to get absorbed by BSNL, failed to exercise the option, when nearly three lakh executive and non-executive employees of the DoT opted for BSNL in 2000.
According to a note released by the agitating BSNL Employees Associations, though the permission reportedly granted by the government to the incumbent I.T.S. officers to continue ‘on deputation’ in BSNL for a further period of five years, i.e. till 2005 had lapsed long ago, neither the officials went to the DoT, nor did the government take any initiative to repatriate them to the DoT, despite the High Court’s orders, the note added. The apparent main grievance of the agitating BSNL employees in the case is that the handful of I.T.S officers who managed to stay on in BSNL were enjoying the ‘top posts’ in the organisation, obviously affecting their promotional chances. It is to bring pressure on the GoI to concede their ‘one and only demand’ that the Joint Forum is currently on a 3-week long agitation in different modes including a march to the Parliament in Delhi, to Raj Bhavans in the State capitals and to the Collectorates in the districts on October 26, hunger strike for six days from October 29 to November 3 with a simultaneous indefinite non-cooperation movement.
