Hindustan (nahi) bol raha hai

The following are the key points from a report on Economic Times:

BSNL incurred losses of Rs 4,963.6 crore from its non-cellular business, which largely constitutes its fixedline and broadband offerings.

For the year ended March 2009, the telco’s total revenues were at Rs 35,811.9 crore — profits had nosedived 81% and revenues fell 6% when compared to last year.

In the same period, its total other income from non-telecom related activities was a little over Rs 5,000 crore. This implies, the PSU’s other income has covered up its losses from landline and cellular business completely

Besides, it also reveals that the telco is not making any profits whatsoever from its cellular business.

BSNL also gets government support of Rs 2,000 crore annually from the Universal Obligation Fund (?!).

If not for this subsidy, BSNL’s losses from its non-cellular businesses would be at Rs 7,000 crore for last fiscal.

Recently, when we thought getting a broadband connection, BSNL was our first choice.  However, it turned out to be a lengthy process. We first had to request for a land line connection.  Then, we had to submit a written letter/request to the manager for providing us a modem. After waiting for almost a month, we gave up and turned to a private broadband provider. The very next day, a sales guy came to our house and collected the required documents and the following day, a new connection was provided, even in our absence. Of course, BSNL cannot act like private players as they are guided by few principles/codes.  But, whats the point in keeping few thousands of employees happy while leaving lakhs of customers in distress?

Gone are the days when we wait for the service guy with bated breath. As the Airtel ad says, Impatience is a virtue now.

Phew

I have been working continuously for the past 2 weeks without any break. It was so tiring and irritating. All along, this dialog from Die Hard 4.0 kept popping up in my mind, “All you gotta do is go pick up a kid down in New Jersey, and drive him down to D.C. How hard can that be, huh?” ..But development job is not so, the work keeps growing…..The release date is here and we somehow packed something and sending it to client. Rest of the worries later. It never gonna end….
When stock markets tumble and equity returns are in the negative terrain, people tend to opt for good old investment arenas like FD, NSC, PPF etc. Same way, during these stressful times I am always attracted to government jobs. Though no one works in government in my family, I have seen quite a few people working in government jobs and have observed their work style. I could list the following reasons for this attraction.

Fear of Job Loss – There is nothing so scary like being out of job for a spendthrift like me. Retrenchment is everywhere and jobs have dried up.  I honestly envy government employees who continue to survive and thrive even if they are part of loss making organizations.

Unable to spend time with family and friends – One of my friend’s mom works in BSNL. She goes to office at 8.30 and comes back at 6. And she manages to come to home during lunch time and prepare lunch as well ( I appreciate the love she has for her family). But, it really makes me jealous to see them spending most of time with their family.

But hey, its the same government job I was criticizing for red tapism, redundancy, corruption and what not. This fear is short living. Ha, It slipped my mind…