BSNL’s Silver Jubilee - Lessons and Tasks.
P Abhimanyu
On October 1, 2025, BSNL completed the silver jubilee of its formation. It is indeed 25 years of glorious service to the nation. The government formed this corporation on October 1, 2000, by converting the Department of Telecom Services and the Department of Telecom Operations. The idea was to quickly start disinvestment and then to ultimately privatise it. But, BSNL has completed its silver jubilee, thanks to the glorious struggles conducted by the unions and associations.
Throughout these 25 years, BSNL has served the marginalised sections of the people and also those living in the far-flung regions of the country. The private companies did not dare to go to the Naxalite-affected areas and BSNL is the only service provider in those regions.
Whenever natural calamities hit the country, be it cyclones, floods or tsunami, BSNL is the only telecom company which provided communication services for relief and rescue operations to save the affected people. It is important to mention here that private telecom operators used to shut down their equipment in such times.
During these 25 years, it is BSNL and not the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which has really played the role of the market regulator, by protecting the consumers from the merciless lootings of private operators. It is only because of the existence of the BSNL that the private operators were not able to raise their tariffs indiscriminately.
For example, the private operators raised their tariffs up to 25% in July, 2024. As a result, lakhs of customers deserted the private companies within a short period and migrated to BSNL. Jio, the biggest telecom company, lost more than 40 lakh customers. It will remain as a good lesson to them for the future.
Nevertheless, there is a big complaint about BSNL, that it’s quality of services is not as good as that of the private telecom companies. What is the reason for this complaint? All the governments in the past 25 years, be it the Vajpayee government, or the Manmohan Singh government, or the present Narendra Modi government, have only adopted pro-private and anti-BSNL policies.
We can quote two clear examples. From 2007 to 2012, BSNL was not allowed to procure equipment for its mobile network expansion. All the tenders floated by BSNL during this period were cancelled by the government under one pretext or the other. Consequent to this, BSNL was not able to expand its mobile network, which resulted in deterioration of service. It was during this period that BSNL became a loss-making company. This is the first example.
And the second example is the one that we are witnessing at present. The private operators are procuring their equipment from foreign companies like Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung, which have proven 4G and 5G technologies. At the same time, BSNL has been forced by the government to procure 4G equipment only from Indian manufacturers. As a result, BSNL is compelled to procure sub-standard equipment from TCS. This has resulted in serious customer dissatisfaction and led to the exodus of customers from BSNL to the private companies. This is clearly a conspiracy of the government to weaken BSNL.
It is important to mention here that, all these 25 years, BSNL has survived only because of the massive and militant struggles organised by the unions and associations of BSNL, against the anti- BSNL policies of the government. Undoubtedly, BSNL Employees Union (BSNLEU) has played a pivotal role in organising these united struggles. Numerous struggles have taken place, but the following three struggles remain outstanding.
First is the one-day strike organised in July 2007, against the diktat of the then Minister of Communications, for the cancellation of the 45 million line tender floated by BSNL, to procure 2G equipment. For the first time in, the officers and workers joined hands and unitedly organised this strike.
Second is the 3-day strike from December 1, 2010, against strategic sale of BSNL’s shares, induction of a strategic partner in BSNL and massive retrenchment of employees through VRS, all of which were recommended by the high-powered Sam Pitroda Committee. Due to the success of this strike, the recommendations of the committee were dropped.
Third is the one-day strike in December 2016 against formation of a subsidiary tower company. The government planned to weaken BSNL by snatching away its mobile towers. The powerful strike sent a stern message to the government, which dropped the proposal.
BSNL needs to be protected and strengthened to serve the working masses and people belonging to the downtrodden sections of this country. BSNL has to provide good quality and satisfactory service to the nation. But the government has a different plan. That is to weaken BSNL and to hand it over to the corporates, as was done in the case of Air India. The private telecom companies want to ensure that BSNL does not remain as a government company, so that they can loot the people by raising tariffs exorbitantly. The game plans of the government and the private telecom companies can be defeated only with the support of the people. The trade union movement of BSNL has to give priority to this task.
