Government trying to revive BSNL, MTNL, make them professional

NEW DELHI: Efforts are on to revive the public sector BSNL and MTNL and make them professional, the government informed Rajya Sabha on Thursday while noting that the VRS scheme for existing employees is receiving an encouraging response.

Communications minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said a total of 79,000 employees of BSNL and 14,000 out of 20,000 employees of MTNL have applied for the VRS scheme which the government has come out with to reduce the employee cost in these PSUs which is currently very high as compared to the industry.

“BSNL and MTNL are the strategic assets for the country and in case of earthquake, cyclone or defence purposes they come forward proactively to help citizens. Therefore, we have decided to revive them,” he told the Rajya Sabha.