Officers and employees of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) launched a three-day agitation on Tuesday with the objective of saving the ailing public sector telecom company and putting it back on the road to profit.
The employees, owing allegiance to various trade unions, staged a day-long dharna at the Office of the Telcom General Manager here on Tuesday.
The main demands include: payment of full compensation to BSNL for losses suffered by it due to landline connections in rural areas, immediate payment of Rs.6724 crore, promised by the government for return of spectrum, withdrawal of the proposal to hand over cell towers to private parties, purchase of equipment required for expansion of mobile network and optical fibre cable network and giving up the proposal to merge BSNL and MTNL.
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BSNL Employees and Officers Aikya Vedika has given a call to all employees and officers to stage protests opposite the corporate office, circle offices and district offices during the three-day agitation.
A decision was taken to stage a protest outside the Parliament House on February 25 demanding saving of BSNL and submitting a memorandum to the Prime Minister with one crore signatures.
It was also decided to bring pressure on the government to initiate measures to save BSNL and to go on an indefinite strike from March 17, if necessary.
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Aikya Vedika representatives P. Latchiraju, A. Chittibabu, GSN Raju, K. Kondala Rao, A. Srirama Rao, G. Srinivas and K. Vijayanand led the protest.