Kolkata: The recent decisions by two state governments – Odisha and Rajasthan – abolishing contractual engagement of people for government jobs have come as a morale booster for trade unions. The unions have been agitating for several years demanding contract workers’ regularisation. The General Administration and Public Grievance department of the Odisha government issued the notification on October 16, following up on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s announcement the previous day. Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot approved the regularisation proposal on October 22.

Odisha state CITU secretary Bishnu Mohanty told NewsClick that it was a bad move on the part of the state government to introduce contract jobs in government departments on November 12, 2013. “Continuing a sustained struggle against the move, we held a massive demonstration in Bhubaneswar on September 11 and, in a sense, that was the clincher for us,” Mohanty added.

The BJD government’s decision would benefit 57,000 persons while the move in Rajasthan would stand an estimated 1.1 lakh persons in good stead, including over 40,000 persons in the Education Department alone.

A close examination of developments culminating in the decision to repeal the contract labour engagement notification by the Patnaik ministry suggests that aiding the struggle of trade unions on this issue were some crucial court orders/observations pulling up the Odisha government for engaging people on a contract basis for government department jobs. For example, in November 2021, a single-judge bench of B R Sarangi had said that it is easy to utilise outsourcing agencies for the supply of manpower and pay them paltry sums of money for extracting work similar to jobs done by regular employees. A government is a model employer; it should not do that. No doubt, technology has its own place in growth but that cannot mean that the government will not create jobs. Getting people from service providers citing financial crunch cannot be the way, Justice Sarangi contended then.

The Rajasthan Contractual Hiring to Civil Post Rules 2022 will ensure transparency and provide for reservation. In the future, contractual workers completing five years of work will get confirmation if the posts are regularised. They can be made permanent after a screening process. Gehlot claimed that this marks a step to provide social security and pointed out there are examples of states not bothering to increase the honorarium.

Interestingly, the initiatives of Odisha and Rajasthan have prompted political leaders to raise demands for similar action by their state governments. An instance is Pattali Makkal Katchi president Anbumani Ramadoss’s demand in Tamil Nadu to abolish contract appointments in government departments and set an example of social justice.

The trade union leaders NewsClick spoke to said an opportunity had come their way to step up the agitation in states where contract appointment for government jobs is rampant. A glaring example, according to Ashok Ghosh, president of the Revolutionary Socialist Party-arm United Trades Union Congress, is West Bengal where contract appointment has become the order of the day in the Trinamool Congress regime. Ghosh cited a notification issued on October 18 by the Public Health Engineering Department, the very first sentence of which acknowledges that pump operators and valve operators “are employed as contract labour” through contractors for piped water supply schemes. The notification speaks of the department’s decision to accede to the demand for extending the benefits of ESI and EPF, subject to contractors abiding by the stipulations laid down.

In West Bengal, a range of services including teaching is provided by people outsourced on contractual terms. Over a lakh of civil volunteers who, among others, provide assistance to traffic police are all engaged on a contract basis. It all picked up pace in 2014 when the TMC regime was in its first term. In an order dated August 1 that year, Hari Krishna Dwivedi, then finance secretary and now chief secretary, said that after the expiry of the contract of an employee, fresh contract may be executed for engagement in other entity, local fund or government office, as the case may be, with the express condition, inter alia, therein that such engagement “will not be regularised in future in any manner whatsoever”. The notification 3967-F(P) of August 1, 2014 made it clear that “contractual remuneration may be the same as was in the present office”. The reason for this strong step was obvious – even then the TMC ministry was experiencing a resource crunch and finding it difficult to pay its staff, Ghosh argued.

Here it bears mention of what Odisha CM said announcing the decision to regularise appointments to Group C and Group D posts. It was a difficult decision then (2013). “Now our economy has improved significantly. Odisha has created a new identity for itself in the field of development,” Patnaik observed. If his logic is stretched a bit and applied to neighbouring West Bengal, it becomes obvious that West Bengal’s economy is in a bad shape and the state government routinely applies the brakes on welfare and social security-related expenditure for its employees, the UTUC president argued.

The chief minister is desperate to prove her pro-industry credentials in recent years in the face of strident Opposition criticism that her ministry’s track record in industrialisation and job creation has been dismal. According to Debasish Dutta, a senior AITUC leader who heads the outfit’s jute mill union, he discovered to his dismay that the state government has quietly discontinued publication of the labour department’s annual report ‘Labour in West Bengal’, which has been a regular publication with a mine of information since the Congress days. Dutta’s bid to get the latest issue was revealing. The last issue was from 2015, of which only one copy was available and the officer was reluctant to part with it. As two copies of the report for 2013-14 were available, he was given one copy.  

For the record:

An editorial in The Telegraph of October 21 has observed: “A significant number of Indian workers who emigrate are semi-skilled or unskilled labourers. The worsening economic situation under the Narendra Modi government is unlikely to stem the flow of émigrés. Several challenges thus lie before the Centre, the first of which is ensuring that Indian labourers abroad are safe and fairly compensated. […] There is also a case for the Centre to turn its eye towards the domestic informal sector that is plagued by similar challenges.[…] The wellbeing of Indian workers abroad is also a diplomatic challenge”. 

Courtesy: Newsclick

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Kolkata: The Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations turned out be a non-event for the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) staff. Around 10-12 weeks before Independence Day, the Sanchar Bhawan indicated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi could announce a date for the launch of BSNL’s much-delayed 4G services during his I-Day address to the nation.

Subsequently, however, another story was doing the rounds: Modi might only announce a token launch from either Chandigarh or Ambala, where public sector technology firm Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) was testing its core network with the radio equipment of Tejas Networks Limited and other software components of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

Together, Tejas—a part of the TCS Group outfit—TCS and C-DOT “have been entrusted the responsibility by BSNL” for executing its 4G entry as a symbol of Modi’s Atmanirbhar Bharat drive and facilitating the graduation into 5G in due course. Though this information is in the public domain, the intriguing official silence on the role of the three companies continues. The three companies themselves are also mum. 

The optimism of BSNL employees about the launch of 4G services can partly be traced to the Union Cabinet’s announcement of Rs 1.64 lakh crore revival package for the beleaguered telecom service provider (TSP) on July 27. In the media briefing the same day, Union minister for communications Ashwini Vaishnaw went to the extent of predicting the telco’s return to profit by 2026-27 on execution of the four-year rescue package but was silent on when allotment of 4G spectrum and the timeline for its launch. 

However, a leaked audio of Vaishnaw’s first meeting with senior BSNL senior executives on August 4 revealed the minister warning the employees of voluntary retirement if they don’t’ perform. “I will be measuring the performance every month. Those who don’t want to work can take voluntary retirement and go home. Or you will be made to take voluntary retirement—like what happened in the Railways,” he was heard saying in the clip.

Warning the employees that “this is going to be the new normal from now on”, Vaishnaw further warned, “Perform or perish. Only your performance can save you in this competitive industry. I want to see the results in the next 24 months. I will see monthly report on your performance.” 

According to sources, Vaishnaw’s sudden warning has anguished and demoralised the BSNL employees. He blamed the employees for the telco’s present condition while not arranging for the spectrum and equipment needed for the launch of 4G services. 

On August 18, Vaishnaw announced on Twitter and Koo that 5G spectrum assignment letters had been issued to TSPs. “5G update: Spectrum assignment letter issued. Requesting TSPs to prepare for 5G launch,” he tweeted.

https://twitter.com/AshwiniVaishnaw/status/1560126664805613569

Further, The Economic Times had reported on August 15 that the department of telecommunications (DoT) has started to unlock and sell an additional 5,500 MHz of 5G spectrum worth more than Rs 35,000 crore. A strategy to incorporate 37.0-42.5 GHz as international mobile telecommunications (IMT) bands will be worked out by DoT’s internal committee, which will help in offering 5G fixed wireless access service. 

This will be another avenue for growth of private TSPs, trade unions alleged. All Unions and Associations of BSNL (AUAB) chairman Chandeshwar Singh, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh national executive member SVS Subrahmanyam and BSNL Employees Union general secretary P Abhimanyu alleged that Vaishnaw is being “unfair” to the employees. 

“Some disgusted and angry employees feel that they were much better off in DoT,” said Singh. Subrahmanyam informed that “only some time back, our men erected a mobile tower at a widely visited temple at Saharanpur, UP, in just 20 days. The minister does not make note of such achievements. Our men provide services in extremist-infested areas and sensitive areas of the Northeast and also play a key role in defence communications”. 

Further mentioning the importance of BSNL, Singh said, “BSNL was asked in 2018 to implement the Network for Spectrum project, under which as a reciprocal gesture for release of spectrum held by the armed forces, the Centre had increased the allocation of funds for laying alternate communication network for the defence sector. Our engineers have often to spend a part of their salaries to keep the system going. They know that they will have to wait indefinitely for reimbursement if at all made by the company.” 

Abhimanyu said that “we will have no inhibition if we are asked to work with indigenously developed but proven technology”. But the government is “allowing private TSPs to import commercially proven technology and asking us to work with untested domestically developed technology”, he alleged. “Records will show how many times BSNL has been prevented from procuring equipment for 4G and upgradation of the existing network of base transceiver stations,” he further alleged.

“If roadblocks were not created, the company could have begun 4G services, at least, two years ago. The biggest damage to BSNL’s prospects was caused during the UPA regime by telecom minister A Raja,” Subrahmanyam alleged pointing out that “wage revision has been pending since 2017”.

For the record, the second rescue package of Rs 1.64 lakh crore has a cash component of Rs 43,964 crore and a non-cash component of Rs 1.2 lakh crore. A purpose-wise break-up is given below:

*Administrative allocation of spectrum in 900/1,800 MHz band at a cost of Rs 44,993 crore through equity infusion

*Capex support of Rs 22,471 crore over the next four years to boost development and deployment of  Atmanirbhar 4G stack

*Rs 13,789 crore to be provided as viability gap funding for commercially unviable rural wireline operation undertaken between 2014-15 and 2019-20 as part of the Centre’s social objectives

*To distress the company’s balance sheet, its statutory adjusted gross revenue dues (spectrum usage charges and licence fees) of Rs 33,404 crore will be settled by conversion into equity

*Balance sheet distressing action plan also includes providing sovereign guarantee for Rs 40,399 crore the company will raise by issuing long-term bonds to repay high-cost debt 

*Company to reissue preference shares of Rs 7,500 crore to the Union government

*Bharat Broadband Network Ltd, initially DoT’s SPV for incremental laying of optical fibre in gram panchayat areas and later converted into a PSU, is to be merged into BSNL [Scheme originally called National Optical Fibre Network and later rechristened BharatNet]  

*The company’s authorised capital is to be raised to Rs 1.5 lakh crore in lieu of dues, capex and allotment of spectrum. 

Vaishnaw told the media on July 27 that in the government’s reckoning, BSNL would emerge as a profit-earning entity in 2026-27 as these measures get executed in a pre-determined timeframe. [Rescue package I was granted on October 23, 2019, when the ministry was headed by Ravi Shankar Prasad. The bulk of the funds was meant for implementing the country’s most sweeping VRS which saw the exit of more  than 92,000 employees—78,000-plus from BSNL and the rest from MTNL on January 31, 2020—in one go. To leave no scope for any recruitment in their place, the DoT simultaneously abolished the posts.   

The writer is an independent journalist. Views expressed are personal

Courtesy: Newsclick

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