BSNL clears June salary of all its employees

On Saturday, State-owned BSNL has cleared June salary of all its employees, while it awaits clearance of around Rs14,000 cr in dues from the telecom department.

"BSNL has cleared salary payments of all employees for June from internal accruals of about Rs 2,000 cr", an official source, who did not wish to be named, told PTI.

The company has cleared around Rs 750 cr for salaries, paid interest of around Rs 800 cr on loans and rest of the funds have been approved for operational expenses like electricity bill payments, partial dues of vendors etc. The total debt on BSNL is around Rs 15,000 cr, which is lowest in the industry.

All India Unions and Associations of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (AUAB) Convenor P. Abhimanyu said, "A finance wing official has confirmed that they have received funds for June salary and it will be credited in the accounts of employees on Monday".

According to the source, in April the company has sent demand of Rs 14,000 cr to the Department of Telecom but is yet to receive it. As on march 31, 2019- a total of 1,63,902 employees, including 46,597 executive and 1,17,305 non-executive, were working in BSNL.

The government has been promising to revive the PSUs - BSNL and MTNL and the proposals in this regard are pending with the DoT.