Madhulika
In Bengaluru’s 80 workers have entered their third month of protest against Indian Telephone Industries [ITI] Limited, one of the India’s largest public sector undertakings [PSU]. The workers, many of whom, are women and belong to the Dalit community, have been on protest since December 1 of last year, after being prevented from entering the premises of the company’s K.R. Puram-based plant on that day. Hours after being turned away from work, they were informed by a Human Resource representative that their employment had been terminated by the company, on account of a change in the contracting agency attached to the company.
Set up in 1948, ITI is independent India’s first PSU. Since its inception, ITI exclusively catered to the country’s telecommunication needs until the 1994 telecom policy – part of India’s liberalization reforms – opened the Indian telecom sector for both domestic and foreign investment. While many PSUs were unable to survive India’s liberalization experiment, with many either closing down or selling away huge stakes to the private sector, ITI survived the reform period to both expand its scope of services and profit-making capacity.
Today ITI, under the aegis of the Union Ministry of Communications, works in diverse fields including fiber optics, broadband connectivity, defense and surveillance technology. As per the company’s Annual Report for the year 2018-2019 alone the company made a profit of 111 crore rupees – a whopping 9 per cent...
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