BSNL Cuts Down Employee Costs BSNL chairman, Pravin Kumar Purwar remarked about this development, “We are saving up to 50% or Rs 600 crore monthly on employee cost. In the two months of February and March in this fiscal, savings of nearly Rs 1,300 crore are coming to us.” It is worth noting that in total, BSNL had a worker base of 1.5 lakh. It was because of this massive workforce that BSNL was shelling out its revenue to pay the salaries. The wage to revenue ratio for BSNL was around 75%, as opposed to the private telecom operator, which spend less than 10% on the salaries to their employees. However, after getting the relief package from the government and the nod for VRS, as many as 78,569 employees have opted for the VRS. However, BSNL will still be taking care of the salaries of these employees until January 31, 2020. BSNL Also Makes Cuts to Power Consumption This is not the only way in which BSNL would be saving money and cutting corners to improve its balance sheet. There would be a series of internal cost-cutting measures as well. Not only this, but BSNL would be making some cuts in operational expenditure too. Also, there would be a 15% cut in the power costs that currently come out to be Rs 2,700 crore annually. It is worth noting that currently, the operational costs of BSNL come out to be Rs 10,800 crore every year. Land Asset Monetisation and Other Plans The relief that came from the government for reviving the government PSUs was not only for BSNL but also came for the metropolitan counterpart of BSNL, MTNL too. In this relief package, the telecom operators received some monetary relief, VRS package, and land monetisation programme along with the allocation of 4G airwaves. Purwar also added, “We are looking at BSNL-owned assets which are more than 60%. BSNL has revalued its assets. Non-leased assets are valued at Rs 73,000 crore.” The total real estate value owned by BSNL stands at Rs 1.1 lakh crore. Another revenue source that BSNL would be exploring is telecom infrastructure tenancy which would further propel the revenue of the telecom operator. If this plan materialises, then BSNL would set to benefit a lot since the telco owns 68,000 mobile tower sites and 7.6 lakh kilometres of optic-fibre based network.
