Bills amounting to crores of rupees are pending in payments since the past six months for contractors involved in optical fibre cable laying and other works for the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).
Contract workers in the various departments of the government-owned company have also not been paid their wages for the past few months.
The situation lays bare the financial crisis in the company, which has in recent times been sidelined by the Central government in favour of private operators in the allocation of 4G spectrum.
According to the contractors working with the BSNL for the past two decades, this is the first time that the payments have been delayed for such a long period.
“Usually we submit our bills to the Chief General Manager’s office here and get them cleared from Delhi within two months. Now I have ₹1.5 crores of pending bills for the past six months. The officials here are helpless as the funds have to come from the Delhi office. Most of the contractors have taken loans from banks and private lenders.
This delay has pushed us all into a crisis. Earlier there was a plan for the BSNL to take a loan to pay all the pending bills, but it did not go through as the government refused to stand in surety with the bank,” says U. Biju, a contractor.
GST payment
Another issue for them is the payment of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) for the submitted bills.
Usually, they have to remit the GST amount of 18% of the bill within 40 days of submitting the bills.
This amount is also included in the payment from BSNL.
“Now that the payments are pending, our GST payments are getting delayed too. Because these are huge bills, the GST payments also amounts to lakhs, which we are unable to pay unless the BSNL pays us. It would be better if they could at least provide us some assurance as to when the bills would be paid. Bills are pending for contractors in all the districts,” says another contractor.
Within the BSNL too, many of those who work on contract have not been paid their wages for the past four months.
In December last year, pending wages for a few months were paid together after the employees went on protest.
