VRS for staff may be only option for loss-making MTNL if it shuts: Execs

Instituting a company-wide voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) may be the only option available to state-run telecom PSU Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) and its 3,574 employees in the event of the company’s closure and delisting from the stock exchange, officials said.

Set up in 1986, the public sector undertaking (PSU) under the Ministry of Communications was tasked with providing telephone services in the Delhi and Mumbai circles. The company had stayed profitable till 2008-09. Since then, it made losses every year barring 2013-14, when it posted a profit of Rs 7,825 crore mainly due to write-back of provisions on account of pensionary liabilities and spectrum amortisation costs.