BSNL employees oppose Centre decision to freeze DA hike

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Current and retired employees of BSNL have opposed the government's decision to freeze dearness allowance (DA) for 18 months, starting January 1, 2020. All India BSNL-DOT Pensioners Association (AIBDPA), representing more than one lakh of pensioners retired from Department of Telecom and BSNL, on Saturday said that their members have already contributed to the Prime Minister and Chief Minister's relief funds according to their ability and deduction will put pensioners to extreme difficulty.

The BSNL Employees' Union (BSNL EU) called the move a retrograde action and a "big attack on the livelihood of the central government employees and pensioners" while denouncing the action of the government.

Both bodies alleged the government of favouring corporates by way of giving loan waivers, tax rebates, etc and questioned the decision of DA freeze which adversely impacts many low-income employees.

"Government has waived bad loans worth ₹5.5 lakh crore. An overwhelming portion of these bad loans were defaulted by the big corporates. By waiving the bad loans so massively, the government had only facilitated the big corporates to loot people's money. In view of the foregoing, BSNL EU wishes to state that the DA freeze imposed on the central government employees and pensioners is most unjustified," BSNL EU said.

AIBDPA said that the government-run BSNL has stopped medical allowance and reimbursement of medical treatment expenses for the last two years on the plea of lack of funds and the pensioners are dependent upon their meagre pension.

"Many of these pensioners draw minimum pension which is insufficient even for day to day expenses. It is at this crucial time that the decision to freeze DR (dearness relief) for 18 months has been issued. This amount will increase according to the increase in pension which will put the pensioners to extreme difficulty," the retired employees' body said.

According to AIBDPA, the DR cut will be about ₹17,000 (for the 18-month period) or more for a pensioner getting about ₹10,000 monthly pensions.