Jamshedpur vendors protest BSNL’s policies, GM promises solution

Mail News Service

Jamshedpur, Sept 15: The Jamshedpur Vendors Association, led by its President Bablu Jha, staged a sit-in protest on Monday outside the BSNL General Manager’s office against the alleged arbitrary and unfair policies of the telecom giant. The protest also received the support of East Singhbhum District Congress Committee City President Dharmendra Sonkar.

During the protest, when officials tried to meet a few selected contractors, the move was strongly opposed. The contractors demanded that the General Manager should directly address them at the protest site. Eventually, the GM arrived and listened to their grievances patiently.

Bablu Jha alleged that while other companies offered bonuses to contractors, BSNL’s Accounts Section arbitrarily deducted contractors’ payments without notice. He warned that the “arbitrariness of the Chief Accounts Officer will not be tolerated.” The GM assured that contractors’ concerns would be resolved in writing within two days.

Bablu Jha further warned that if the demands were not met before Durga Puja, all TEPs, contractors, and agencies would shut down BSNL’s internet services, holding BSNL management responsible for any disruption.

The contractors highlighted several demands including arbitrary commission deduction of 10–20% without notice, uninformed charges under SLA, promotion of OTT services on BSNL’s website despite stopping them, faults cleared in FMS still showing as pending due to clarity issues, arbitrary collection of OLT fares, transfer of Santosh Kumar, Accounts Officer, who has long served in Jamshedpur and timely payment of GST.

The protest saw participation from a large number of contractors, including Sanjay Kumar, Saurabh Gupta, Mithilesh Chaudhary, Virendra Singh, Ajitesh Ujjain, Manish Kumar, Mohammad Arif Azad, Nikhil and Abhishek Jaiswal.