The state owned Telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has given a shocker for their employees, as the top management board of the company has provided its approval for the layoff of 31% of workforce, which comes to close to 54,000 employees.

Following this news, it has been speculated by many that BSNL might shutdown services sooner. One of the largest public sector organisations of the country, BSNL is debt ridden and is currently having huge volumes of debts worth Rs 13,000 crores. Last year alone the organization faced losses of Rs 7993 crores, which was 20% more than 2017.

After this, the BSNL board has approved several decisions, including retirement age reduction from 60 to 58, introduction of Voluntary retirement scheme, and this retirement age reduction will lead to 54,000 employees losing jobs, and BSNL has estimated that this will save then 13,800 crores. It must be noted that BSNL and MTNL were unable to pay salaries of their staff in February.