BSNL’s workforce may go down by 7% in 2017-18. Here’s why

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) is planning to reduce its workforce by about seven percent by 2018. This workforce phase out is a part of employees attaining retirement age and BSNL expects that this would eventually help it in increasing its revenue, which majorly goes into salaries.

"Nearly 10% staff goes off the rolls every year as they achieve retirement. We are not filling up new positions and it could eventually help us in increasing operational profit,” BSNL chairman Anupam Shrivastava had earlier told ET.

The state owned teleco has an employee base of 2,09,996 in 2016-17, which it expect to fall down to 1,96,162 by April 30th 2017.

According to a top executive in BSNL, the PSU is targeting towards turning into a profit making organization by 2018-19.

BSNL spends more than 50 per cent of its annual revenue towards meeting salary expenses of its staff while on the other hand, rivals like Bhaarti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone India spend a mere 5% to 6% on staff salaries.

The proposal that is aimed at bringing down the headcount is on hold according to Shrivastava.

BSNL posted an Rs 8,234 crore loss in 2014-15, highest among all public-sector companies for that year.