The union in a letter to BSNL Chairman and Managing Director P K Purwar said the financial condition of the company has deteriorated after implementation of voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) and the faults in the networks have increased due to shortage of manpower in various cities.

The union also claimed that 30,000 contractual workers have already been retrenched under the company's retrenchment process and as per the report, the workers remained unpaid for more than a year.

The union in a letter to BSNL Chairman and Managing Director P K Purwar said the financial condition of the company has deteriorated after implementation of voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) and the faults in the networks have increased due to shortage of manpower in various cities.

The union also said that BSNL is unable to pay salaries of employees on due date even after VRS and 13 contract workers have allegedly committed suicide due to non-payment of wages for the past 14 months. Queries sent to BSNL did not elicit an immediate response.

BSNL issued an order on Sept. 1 with the permission of its human resource director asking all the chief general managers "to take immediate steps to curtail the expenditure on contract works and reduce engagement of labours through contractors".