Chennai: Around 600 retired BSNL employees in Tamil Nadu on Thursday staged an agitation in Egmore against the Govt Telecom Employees’ Co-operative Society (GTECS), accusing it of sitting on 110 crore savings for more than seven years due to “gross mismanagement and maladministration”.The All India BSNL Pensioners’ Welfare Association said GTECS, a multi-state cooperative under the Union ministry of cooperation, was formed to provide financial assistance to telecom employees in the Tamil Nadu and Chennai telephones circles. As per rules, when an employee retires, their membership ceases and their deposits and dividends are to be returned after adjusting any loan dues. However, the association said no retiree received payments since Oct 2018.“Around 4,000 retirees are affected, with individual dues ranging from 50,000 to 8 lakh. The total outstanding amount is estimated at nearly 110 crore. The situation turned grim for many families, with about 40 retirees dying in the intervening years without their dues being settled,” said circle president R Venkatachalam.The association said repeated representations to the central registrar of cooperative societies in New Delhi yielded no result. It also alleged that funds were locked in land purchases and that loan repayments to banks were not cleared, worsening the crisis.Venkatachalam said the society is now without an elected body and there is no authority to take decisions. Protests were held across district headquarters in Tamil Nadu on Jan 7 as part of the first phase of agitation.
