New Delhi: State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will possibly again delay August salaries to as many as 163,000 employees by almost a week, a source told ETTelecom.
“Cash crunch has cropped up again and the amount required to pay BSNL’s staff remuneration is not yet transferred for disbursal. The transaction is expected in the next few days,” a source aware of the matter said, and added that the salary normally gets credited on the last working day of every month.
This is for the third time this year when the ailing state-run telecom operator would be delaying payouts to 1,63,902-strong headcount that included 46,597 executives.
In the absence of any capital support from the DoT and suspended reimbursement from the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund, BSNL is, however, raising the amount from its internal accruals.
USOF is a Rs 50,000 crore strong government reserve that funds rural telecom connectivity initiatives in the country and BSNL is one of its key implementing partners.
Plagued with a high revenue-to-wage ratio of 75.5%, the fourth-largest telco requires nearly Rs 800 crores a month to pay off staff salaries.
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Ms Kalinga