More than 92,700 employees of BSNL and MTNL have opted for the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) that closed on Tuesday.
Around 78,300 employees of BSNL opted for the VRS. 14,378 employees of MTNL have opted for the scheme, PTI reported. December 3 was the last date for employees to opt for VRS.

Earlier media reports indicated that there will be some crisis at BSNL and MTNL because of the overwhelming response for the VRS. Both BSNL and MTNL will not have enough staff to run the business.

“Approximately 78,300 employees have opted for the VRS as per data received from all the circles till the closing of the scheme. This is as per our target. We were expecting reduction of 82,000 headcount. Besides VRS applicants, around 6,000 employees also retired,” BSNL chairman and managing director P K Purwar said.

MTNL chairman and managing director Sunil Kumar said that the PSU has exceeded the target set for VRS.

“14,378 employees have opted for VRS against target of 13,650 employees. This will reduce our annual salary bill from Rs 2,272 crore to Rs 500 crore. Now we are left with 4,430 employees which is sufficient to run our business,” Sunil Kumar said.

Media reports indicate that Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio have increased the mobile service tariffs at a time when both BSNL and MTNL are in the process of removing their employees through the VRS.