Page 56 - TELEWAVE JULY-2016

of thousands of crores in accomplishing this herculean task. Besides, BSNLs hug and formidable presence has comprehensively defeated repeated efforts of the private operators to exploit the common people through cartelization. Today telecom tariffs are competitive and market oriented exclusively because of presence of BSNL. The role, to say the least, of BSNL during National Calamities has just no parallels. Be it Tsunami, in Tamil Nadu, floods in Mumbai, cyclones in AP and Odisha, massive floods in Chennai, flash floods in Leh, floods in J&K, catastrophe in Uttarakhand role of BSNL has been extraordinary and commendable. When private operators shut down their services during these natural calamities, BSNL rose to the occasion with unprecedented determination and commitment in providing telecom services in most difficult situations, thereby clearly demonstrating commitment towards maintain National security and welfare of fellow Countrymen. Never at any point of time did BSNL even remotely abdicate its responsibility during such grave National Crisis. Role of BSNL during such crisis has been truly historical. Similarly, BSNL is the main service provider in the remote and far flung areas of the country, where the private service providers are not interested to operate, in view of the low returns. This is happening because, BSNL stands to serve the nation and it's people, while maximization of profit is the only aim of the private telecom service providers. Hence, there is a need to maintain BSNL as a 100% government of India undertaking. It is also pertinent to mention here that, 6 private service providers, viz., Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices and Aircel had understated their revenue to the extent of Rs.46,000 crore during 2006 to 2010, and thereby cheated the government of license fee to the tune of Rs.12,400 crore, which is being recovered by the DoT now. As you are aware sir, BSNL was not allowed to procure equipments for it's mobile network expansion from 2007 to 2012. BSNL's tender to procure 45 million line mobile equipments was cancelled in 2007, as per the direction of the then Hon'ble Minister of Communications. In 2010, the tender floated by BSNL to procure 93 million line equipments was cancelled, due to the intervention of the Home Ministry. Thus, BSNL was starved of equipments, as a result of which the Company started running into loss from 2009 — 10 onwards. It is not out of context to mention here sir, that the entire Executives and Non-Executives of BSNL are determined to turn around BSNL. Under the banner of the "Forum of BSNL Unions and Associations", the employees are actively involved in improving the quality of BSNL's services to increase customer satisfaction. For instance, from 1st January, 2016 onwards, the Forum of BSNL Unions and Associations has given call known as "Service With A Smile (SWAS)", to the employees for the improvement of services and customer satisfaction. The efforts taken by the employees, together with many customer friendly schemes launched by the Management, have started bringing BSNL's turn around. From January, 2016 onwards, BSNL is providing the highest number of mobile connections every month. The Company, which was making operational loss earlier, made an operational profit of Rs.672 crore in 2014 - 15. This figure is expected to go upto Rs.2,400 crore in the last financial year, i.e., 2015¬16. The employees and Management of BSNL are determined to turn BSNL into a profit making company within the next 2 to 3 years. As such, absolutely there is no need for disinvestment in BSNL. Further, we wish to state sir, that strategic sale will end up giving the strategic partner (private company) a say in the Management of the Company. This will be detrimental to the sections of the people and the nation who are depending upon BSNL for reliable and cheap services. In view of the foregoing, we request you sir, to completely abandon any proposal for disinvestment / strategic sale in BSNL. A formidable and robust BSNL- National Telecom institution of the Country- is determined and all set to meet expectations of telecom users in the Country, fulfil the tasks that govt. mandates it with regard to smooth implementation of telecom policies of the govt., defeat cartelization of private operators and thereby safeguard users from massive exploitation by these operators, further augment telecom services infrastructure in remote areas of the Country, script expeditious success of BHARAT NET dream etc. Any effort to weaken BSNL through disinvestment/strategic sale will clearly undermine and defeat accomplishing these great objectives. It is against this background that an impassioned appeal is made to you to restrain policy makers from going ahead with execution of this highly dangerous proposition of disinvestment etc. Instead, the Govt. should be working and actively considering at infusing huge Capital in BSNL to allow it to grow and innovate by procuring state of the art technology that it is badly in need of. A very positive and futuristic TELEWAVE 56 JULY-2016