Despite Financial Crunch, BSNL Clears Full Salaries Of Employees For June While Also Meeting Debt Obligations

Even as state-run telecom giant BSNL awaits for the clearance of Rs 14,000 crore it is owed by the Department of Telecom of the Government of India, the public sector giant on Saturday (29 June) cleared the June salaries of all its employees, reports The Economic Times.

Apart from clearing close to Rs 750 crore for disbursing salaries, BSNL also cleared the interest payments on loans of about Rs 800 crores. Funds had also been cleared by the enterprise for other operational expenses like electricity bill payments and partial dues of vendors et cetera.

The company has been gripped in financial troubles in recent times, with one of the major reasons for the same being its high expense ratio between wages and revenue on account. The employee cost for the BSNL stands at a massive 75.06 per cent compared to the 2-5 per cent among the private telecom companies which BSNL competes with.

As of 31 March 2019, the company had a total of 1,63,902 employees, including 46,597 executive and 1,17,305 non-executive employees.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that BSNL has a total debt obligation of close to Rs 15,000 crore which is the lowest in the entire Indian telecom industry.