By IANS
Chennai : Nearly 40,000 employees of the state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) in Tamil Nadu along with the rest of the country went on a daylong strike Wednesday asking the government to place equipment orders for expansion of its mobile services.
About 400,000 BSNL workers participated in the strike countrywide.
According to industry sources, the employees went on strike for not being able to conclude discussions with the new Telecommunication Minister A. Raja and the department of telecommunications (DoT) about the placing of contracts with regard to laying 45.5 million GSM lines by selected vendors.
Telecom service workers are demanding that BSNL should go according to its tender and place orders immediately for GSM (2G and 3G) equipment with the bid winners.
According to Raja, the $107 per line price demanded by global telecom major Ericsson that was agreed upon by BSNL during the tenure of former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, will cost BSNL Rs.100 billion more.
According to R. Gunasekaran, BSNL employees' union secretary for Chennai circle, the loss due to unavailability of equipment could be as much as Rs.360 billion.
C.K. Mathivanan, secretary, National Federation of Telecom Employees, said the deal involved the decision of the board, and "we are protesting the delay by the board in placing the order".
According to trade union sources, "there is an ulterior motive in stalling the deal now".
Ericsson and Nokia were set to provide equipment to BSNL to step up capacity to the tune of 45.5 million new lines.
The Tamil Nadu circle alone has the need to add 100,000 new lines per month, officials here said.
BSNL, which operates in all regions except Mumbai and Delhi, has 35 million fixed lines and 24 million mobile subscribers.