BSNL workers to go on strike from July 11

Guwahati, July 9 (UNI) Around 3,40,000 BSNL executives and non-executive employees will go on a nation-wide day-long strike on July 11, demanding issue of purchase order for the 45.5 million GSM lines, for which tenders were finalised a year ago.

General Secretary of the BSNL Employees Union VAN Namboodiri said, any delay in issue of purchase order would not only result in loss of thousands of crores of rupees to BSNL, but would also deprive BSNL mobile connections to crores of people.

Mr Namboodiri said, BSNL decided to provide a target of 60 million GSM mobile connections to the people and placed an order for 30 per cent of the same with public sector ITI and the balance of 45.5 million was called for through global tenders.

Ericsson and Nokia won the tender but as Motorola moved to court, the order could not be materialised yet.

Even though Motorola withdrew the case, the BSNL management had not issued the purchase order.

''If the purchase order was not issued and new tenders called for, it would take another two years resulting in a loss of more than Rs 30,000 crores. The undue delay is unjustified,'' the general secretary said.

To ensure that the purchase order is issued, the employees under the banner of Joint Forum would be staging a day-long strike on July 11.

However, the general secretary said, if the issue is not settled by then, the employees would be forced to embark on an indefinite strike.

UNI