Traffic in and around Cubbon Road was thrown out of gear when nearly 3,000 BSNL employees staged a rally on Wednesday.
Protesters converged at the BSNL office on Raj Bhavan Road and submitted a memorandum to Governor T N Chaturvedi.
Mr Vittal Rao, Convener of Joint Forum of Associations and Unions of Executives and Non-Executives of BSNL, said the ‘Save BSNL’ campaign was to present reasons behind the decline in BSNL’s marketshare in mobile phone segment in the country.
“The strike was total with all the 3,000 staffers staying away from work. We will resort to an indefinite strike if our demands are not met. In the beginning, BSNL was not given licence to operate cellular services in the country. Six years after private operators established themselves, we were allowed to operate. We had reached top position in customer base, excluding Mumbai and New Delhi. Now, we are in the third position.”
Mr Rao said the “intentional delay” in procurement of 45.5 million GSM lines by Ministry of Communication and IT and subsequent action of government in support of private operators at the cost of BSNL may sound its death knell.
“There seems to be a hidden agenda to strengthen private players. We are on the verge of losing our customer base,” he added.
Rally jams traffic
There were traffic jams on Cubbon Road, Commercial tax office junction, Manipal Centre junction, Halasuru Road and Dickenson Road junction, Anil Kumble Circle and parts of MG Road. The roads were clogged for over 45 minutes from 12.30 pm. DCP (East) Madhukar Shetty told Deccan Herald there were no traffic restrictions but vehicle movement on Cubbon Road was diverted to MG Road and Infantry Road for a brief period. To add to the chaos, there was no traffic constable toman traffic on Halasuru Road and Dickenson Road junction, where an ambulance was struggling to make its way through.