New Delhi: The Congress party on Monday took a pod shot at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government over state-owned telecom companies BSNL and MTNL reeling under losses and alleged that the Modi government is helping private telecom firms at the cost of public sector undertakings. Both these state-run telecom firms - BSNL and MTNL have been reporting losses since the time they were asked to pay auction determined spectrum price in 2010 for all the circles where they operate. Congress senior leader and spokesperson Randeep Surjewala took to Twitter and alleged that the BJP government did not allot BSNL and MTNL 4G and all private telecom firms are pumping in finance but BSNL is barred from taking loans.

"Problem is not with #BSNL & #MTNL. Problem is malice of BJP government to help pvt telcos at the cost of PSU's," he wrote. Surjewala also pointed out that there has been zero capital investment by government and no investment in towers. "Each countrymen must also think-: 1. In Congress government in 2013-14 MTNL posted a Net Profit of Rs 7,838 crore. In BJP government in 2019, MTNL is reeling under a Net Loss of Rs 3,390 crore. 2. If BJP government can help pvt entities like ILFS, IDBI & GSPC by investing public funds, why not BSNL/MTNL?" the Congress leader said.

MTNL operates in Delhi and Mumbai and BSNL in rest of the 20 telecom circles. While MTNL has been continuously posting loss and has showed no signs of revival, BSNL posted operating profits of Rs 672 crore in 2014-15, Rs 3,885 crore in 2015-16 and Rs 1,684 crore in 2016-17. Earlier in the day, a Congress Rajya Sabha MP sought immediate steps to revive state-owned telecom firms MTNLand BSNL, saying employees were not being paid salaries on time.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Ripun Bora said while private sector companies have been alloted 4G and 5G spectrum, the two public sector enterprises were being forced to operate services through the 3G spectrum. He also claimed that about 45,000 employees of MTNL and 1.74 lakh of BSNL were not being paid salaries on time for several months now.

Citing lower debt and a continuous increase in market share, an association comprising engineers and account professionals at BSNL has sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention for the revival of the state-run firm and also said that non-performing employees should be held accountable, news agency PTI reported.  The All India Graduate Engineers and Telecom Officers Association (AIGETOA) in a letter dated June 18 urged the prime minister to provide a budgetary support to BSNL to help address liquidity crunch that is adversely impacting operation and maintenance of services at the organisation.