BSNL likely to pay May salary on time

BSNL is expected to provide salaries for May on time, which is the last working day of the month. “We are comfortable…We will be able to pay salaries on time this month,” BSNL CMD Anupam Shrivastava said.

The company has recently tied up with State Bank of India for a Rs 1,500-crore loan to meet its working capital requirements, based on a letter of comfort extended by Department of Telecom.

State-owned telecom firm BSNL, which failed to provide salaries on time in February to its over 1.65 lakh staff, has been making timely payments ever since as the liquidity position of the company has been improving.

The salary tab of nearly `900 crore would be supported by receivables from mobile, broadband and enterprise businesses, Shrivastava said.

In February this year, BSNL failed to provide salaries on time, a first for the telecom firm in its entire history. It must be mentioned that almost 60% of the company’s revenues go into paying salaries.

The associations and unions of BSNL allege that the financial health of telecom industry has suffered because of the predatory pricing of Reliance Jio.

The losses of BSNL were increasing every year. It reported a loss of around `8,000 crore for FY18, compared to Rs 4,786 crore in FY17. For FY19 also, the loss is expected to be higher than Rs 8,000 crore.

The government last month extended an approval and letter of comfort for the PSU to avail it loans of up to Rs 3,500 crore from banks for working capital needs, a move that is expected to spell relief for the company battling intense liquidity pressure.

Earlier this month, BSNL said its management is making all efforts to ease liquidity pressure, and expects normalcy to be restored by the September quarter of 2019-20.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL)