GUWAHATI, Dec 15 - Employees of the State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) today staged demonstrations at the company�s offices in the State as part of a nationwide strike call against the government�s alleged move to privatise it by fragmenting it into pieces.
Garga Talukdar of the Joint Council of Trade Unions said the employees and officers of BSNL will not be a party in the �nefarious� design to kill BSNL.
The BSNL employees, shouting slogans outside the company�s office at Panbazar here, said the government is going to hive off the 65,000 odd mobile towers from the BSNL network to form a subsidiary tower company on the basis of a Cabinet note submitted by the Union Ministry of Communication.
Earlier, the Telecom Department was cut into pieces to form Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL), Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited (MTNL) and BSNL. VSNL has already been privatised, while MTNL has been divested to the tune of 46.5 per cent.
�Now disinvestment of BSNL is in the pipeline. Formation of a subsidiary tower company is nothing but a backdoor method to privatise BSNL,� the agitating employees said.
