Reportedly according to a government official over 94,000 employees of state-run BSNL and MTNL have applied for the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) with eight more days to go for its closure, where BSNL's 80,000 and MTNL's 14,000 employees have applied for the VRS.
Reportedly "MTNL's 13,988 employees have applied for the VRS. Of the total 18,200, 16,372 are eligible for it. I am expecting another 500 to opt for the VRS. Our target was 13,500", MTNL Chairman sunil Kumar told. Furthermore of the 1.65 lakh employees of BSNL, nearly 1,00,000 are eligible for the VRS and the effective date of voluntary retirement under the present scheme is january 31, 2020. Further the Union cabinet had last month approved a plan to combine MTNL, which provides telecom services in mumbai and New delhi, and BSNL that services the rest of the nation. Perhaps it also approved a package for the ailing PSUs to cut employee cost by offering the VRS on the gujarat model to the employees of 50 years and above.
Moreover the total of ex-gratia (as per the gujarat model) and admissible pension for the remaining period of service doesn't exceed 125% of the salary that the employee would have drawn on the date of voluntary retirement. Apparently the payment for ex-gratia on VRS (Rs 17,169 crore) and preponed pensioner liability (Rs 12,768 crore spread over 10 years) is to be supported through budgetary allocation. Perhaps the ex-gratia on VRS is to paid in two installments of 50% each during FY20 and during Q1FY21.
