New Delhi: In a major move aimed at streamlining the bottlenecks in expediting the projects, the Telecom Department on Thursday unveiled a strategic plan for bringing together state-owned companies and organisations in the sector to promote greater operational synergy among them, including effective utilisation of human resources as well as land and buildings. The strategic plan, which was unveiled by Union Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha on Thursday, aims at utilising the expertise of public sector undertakings through a holistic approach.
The PSUs covered under the action plan include Mahanagar MTNL , Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), Indian Telephone Industries Ltd (ITI), Centre for Development of Telematics (CDOT), Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd (TCIL), Testing and Certification of Telecom Equipments (TEC), BharatNet (BBNL).
"We have identified specific areas where our teams will work on including manpower, settlement of legal issues and utilisation of vacant space. I am pleased to see the focus on clearly-defined timelines and performance indicators," Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said.
"There are several instances of PSUs going into litigation over one or another issue, which would not happen after the synergisation plan. A review mechanism at Department of Telecom (DoT) will keep the plans on track," Sinha said while pointing out that lack of coordination among different PSUs.
Meanwhile, clearing his stand on the merger of BSNL and MTNL, the minister said, "There is no thinking in government on merging the two, but we are taking steps to ensure that collaboration between MTNL and BSNL strengthens and benefits both the organisations."
The strategic plan - the work on which began in January 2016 - entails amongst other things, an effective utilisation of Human Resources including deriving synergies in training of manpower, and creation of a common platform for web-based online training by BSNL, in a time bound manner. Other aspects include operational utilisation of vacant space, land and buildings within telecom PSUs and organisations within DoT, and promoting Make in India by taking advantage of preferential market access policy.
Also, the telecom PSUs would refrain from going to court against one another and, instead, first approach DoT for dispute resolution. The strategic roadmap would also cover other areas like standards and certification, and preparing to tap opportunities in areas like 5G and Internet of Things (IoT).
During the event on Thursday MoUs were also exchanged between various PSUs under the strategic plan. Amongst them are MoU between ITI and TCIL pertaining to the export of products, ITI and CDOT for transfer of technology, and between MTNL, ITI and CDoT for the joint execution of Internet of Things and smart city projects.