All
India BSNL Pensioners’ Welfare Association (Regd. No.1833/09)
Central Headquarters
AH 189/61, 3rd
Street, Aurovile Flats, Anna Nagar, Chennai-600040
President: P.S.Ramankutty General
Secretary: G.Natarajan
Mobile – 09447551555 Mobile
– 09444929799
Date: 31/12/2016
To
The Chairman cum
Managing Director, BSNL,
Camp at Chennai.
Sir,
On behalf of our Association we wish you a very happy
New Year. We also hope that BSNL under
your stewardship would prosper in 2017.
We welcome you, sir, to the City of Chennai.
We would like to draw your kind personal attention on
the following three important issues confronted by the Retired employees.
1) Restoration
of ‘without voucher’ facility under BSNLMRS to retired employees
You may be aware that most of the senior
citizens are having health problems viz. BP, Sugar, Arthiritis etc. Some are having heart problems. All of them require constant medication. More than 90% of retired employees on an
average spend more than Rs.3000/- p.m. for medicines. Due to cumbersome procedure many do not claim
reimbursement. They are not in a
position to meet the expenditure out of their pension. For the past 5 years they are suffering without
the facility of ‘without voucher’. Hence
we seek your intervention for restoration of that facility atleast to the
retired employees.
2) Benefit
of 78.2% IDA merger for those who retired prior to 10/6/2013
DoT issued orders on 18/7/2016 for extending the benefit of 50% DA merger (78.2% IDA
merger) to those who retired prior to 10/6/2013. Para 7 of that order clearly states “The exercise to extend benefit of these
orders to the pensioners/family pensioners should be completed by 31/12/2016”. The
time-limit was part of Cabinet Note which was approved by the Cabinet. BSNL corporate office endorsed the above order
on 26/7/2016 and para 3 of that
order reiterates the time-limit. The
said time-limit is already over but most of the BSNL units have not even
forwarded the sanction to CCAs.
According to our information, some circles like Punjab, Haryana,
Jharkhand, Chatisgarh the progress is comparatively better. But in other circles, the progress is very
slow. Even in Tamilnadu circle few SSAs
like Cuddalore, Coimbatore, Coonoor etc. have not completed their job. Not even 20% of pensioners/family pensioners
got the benefit by this date. We seek
your kind immediate intervention in this regard.
3) Concessional
telephone to retired employees
On the above subject we wrote a letter on 19/9/2016 to CMD, BSNL. On 25/11/2016
we met the concerned DGM in Corporate office and discussed the issue. He assured to do the needful in this regard
but till now it is not resolved. The
brief of the case is as follows:
The concession was given to
retired/retiring employees w.e.f. 1/10/1998 vide DoT order No.2-79/94-PHA dated
25/9/1998 and the basic condition was that one is
-2-
eligible to this concession provided he/she
has put in a minimum service of 20 years in DoT. It was further clarified by DoT vide order
No.2-79/94-PHA dated 20/3/2009 under point 3 “The employees who have completed
20 years of service in DoT irrespective of whether they retire from DoT or any
other department/organization, are eligible for the concessional telephone
facility applicable to Retired DoT employees.
Para 4 of BSNL corporate office letter
dated 20/7/2007 states “The telephone
will be rent free with the following concessions in free calls over and
above the free calls allowed to an ordinary subscriber”. In the text it was mentioned only free
calls but in the column, it is mentioned as free local calls (Monthly).
Para 6 of the same corporate office letter
dated 20/7/2007 states “concessional
telephones under Retired BSNL employee category as per these instructions shall
be provided under One India tariff plan irrespective
of exchange capacity”.
The concept of One India tariff is ‘ one rupee call charge for anywhere in
India’. In such an eventuality, allowing
the concession only to local calls in the name of loss of revenue is not
understandable. Further all the
absorbees have completed more than 20 years service in DoT and hence they are
entitled for free calls (and not free local calls) asper DoT clarificatory
order dated 20/3/2009. The absorbees
have not only served in DoT but also in BSNL and those BSNL retirees should be
made eligible for concession atleast on par with DoT retirees, if not, more.
We request for immediate action in this
regard.
Yours
faithfully,
(G.Natarajan)
General Secretary.
Copy to:
Director (HR), BSNL,
Camp at Chennai
