Sunday, October 9 2005 12:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Telecom services across the country could suffer with the Department of Telecom set to withdraw over 2,200 top technical officers working in MTNL and BSNL and put them in a surplus cell as the proposal for officers' absorption in the two PSUs has hit a roadblock.

Though officers of Indian Telecom Services Association have ruled out adopting agitation path, they said, "we want to clarify that DoT's action is an attempt to justify their unilateral and draconian actions and is trying to portray our association to be resorting to agitation means."

"We are suspecting that a section of bureaucracy in the DoT and some private business houses may be influencing DoT's action to destabilise the two top telecom PSUs," S S Sirohi, President of ITSA told sources.

The association has appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday for saving MTNL and BSNL and urged him to intervene and direct DoT to honour constitutional provisions, court orders and norms of good governance.

With DoT planning to implement the contingency plans by recalling retired officials from DoT, MTNL and BSNL, Sirohi said it is unfortunate that such a plan is being considered. Most of the retired officials are now working with private operators and in such a scenario they will be serving their interests and not of MTNL and BSNL.

In fact, some of the officials have already cleaned up their offices in BSNL and preparing themselves to face the situation.