Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, May 18: A delegation of Indian Telecom Officers represented by the members of Indian Telecom Industries (ITI) Joint Action Front, comprising of ITI Employees Unions and other Officer Associations of the Union, today called on Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh and sought his intervention for pulling out the ITI Ltd from a grave financial crisis faced by it.
They drew the Minister’s attention to the fact that ITI Ltd was the first Indian PSU to be established after independence but has been declared sick since 2014 as a result of which, over 500 families of the officers are living in a state of deep financial crisis and stress. In addition, there is also the issue of delay in cadre review and pay scale review they added.
In a memorandum presented to Dr Jitendra Singh, the delegation reiterated its demand for revised salary structure and cadre review. It further said that because of the negative financial net and inability to pay borrowed loans, the ITI Ltd is suffering from acute financial crunch and the salaries of the officers are being paid on uncertain times once in three months and sometimes also remain unpaid.
The solution to this problem, according to the memorandum, was either the merger with some other viable PSU or find another feasible solution.
Reiterating their earlier demand,the members of the delegation also submitted that Indian Telecom Service is a Group-A service with around 1700 officers posted in various wings of the Department of Telecom including DoT, MTNL, BSNL, DVNL, Central & State Government Departments and PSUs. The memorandum claimed that the previous cadre review had taken place more than 25 years ago and the ITS cadre strength as on 1st January 2008 is more than 6000. However, in view of the vast expansion of communication related networks of DoT, including policy making, licensing, regulation, network security, enforcement skill building, Prime Minister’s flagship programme “Digital India”, “Bharat Net”, etc., a requirement of minimum 1100 ITS officers has been sent to DoPT for its consideration.
Dr Jitendra Singh gave a patient hearing to the delegation and assured that DoPT will do whatever possible to address the issues put forward by the ITS officers.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
