The Congress on Thursday asked the Centre to come out with a bailout package for state-owned MTNL as the future of its 45,000 employees are at stake.
At a press conference here, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said, “The MTNL could lose its licence to offer mobile services as the government is yet to pay ₹11,000 crore to renew its licence.”
While private telecom companies are launching 5G services, that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is blocking the allocation of 4G spectrum to state-owned companies like BSNL and MTNL, the Congress said.
Mr. Khera said they were being forced to continue serving only 3G services.
“Where is the fault line in your policy, why is a company, which was a profitable venture under the UPA, is registering losses every year for the last five years consecutively?”asked the Congress spokesperson.
The Congress claimed that under the Congress-led UPA government made a profit of Rs 7,838 crore in 2013-14.
Under the BJP government, the MTNL incurred a net loss of 3,390 crore, he alleged.
The Congress said the new government should immediately focus on turning around the public sector undertakings (PSUs) and allow MTNL-BSNL start their 4G/5G services.
“Why are the hands of MTNL and BSNL tied? 5G is something which is now being provided by other private players and you don’t allow these companies to even go beyond 3G – why? As a result, you see these companies are bleeding to a slow death, yes slow but certain death,”alleged Mr Khera.
The party asked that a bailout package to revive the ailing Telecom PSUs mus be immediately brought out and clear the salaries of MTNL’s 45000 employees as well as over 1.74 lakh employees of BSNL.