The Hindu Business Line : Only 2,000 opt for VRS in MTNL

MAHANAGAR Telephone Nigam Ltd's latest voluntary retirement scheme, which closed today, has somewhat come a cropper with only around 2,000 employees, out of its total staff of around 58,000, applying for it.

"Around 1,200 employees in Mumbai, out of the 26,000 C&D category staff have applied, and around 700 in New Delhi," said Mr Arvind Sawant, General Secretary, Mahanagar Telepone Nigam Kamgar Sangh, Mumbai.

The company is finding it very difficult to trim the jumbo staff size, said a senior executive, adding that the VRS scheme received only lukewarm response.

On the other hand, he said, MTNL is faced with a shortage of medium-to-junior executives consisting of engineers, accountants and general management personnel, ever since hiring of Junior Telecom Officers (JTOs) through the Indian Telecommunication Services was discontinued for the company five years ago.

The company's staff costs accounted for 42 per cent of total expenditure in the third quarter of this fiscal, up from 35 per cent of total expenditure in the third quarter of the previous fiscal.

As a percentage of net income from revenues, staff costs rose to 32.69 per cent during the quarter currently ended from 22.5 per cent during the corresponding year-ago quarter.

The current VRS scheme was unacceptable to the unions because the issue of pension has not yet been settled, said Mr Sawant.

When MTNL was corporatised, its C&D category employees were no longer considered government employees, eligible for clear and full pension benefits, he said.

"This is not acceptable to us," he said. He described the ones who did apply for VRS against the advice of the unions, were those staff who were "mostly ill or incapacitated."

Whereas the top management cadre of the company is technically still in the employ of Department of Telecommunications, with all the attendant benefits, but only on deputation to MTNL, he said.

At the executive end, MTNL needs about 100 engineers, 50 accountants and around 100 general management people, said Mr Kuldeep Goyal, Executive Director, MTNL, Mumbai, when he spoke to Business Line recently. The company had attempted recruitment of JTOs from campuses and other sources, but many of them tended to move out quickly for greener pastures, said a senior executive with MTNL.

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