According to the latest recommendations by the Committee headed by Sam Pitroda, an advisor to the Prime Minister, the state-run telecom venture Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) should either transfer or retire 1 lakh employees i. e. almost 1/3 rd of its workforce. The recommendation further passed an option of divesting a 30% stake to improve organisation performance and employee productivity substantially.

With more than 3-lakh employees under the BSNK family, the public sector company is one of the largest employers in the country along with the 14-lakh family of Indian railways. For instance, Bharti, India's largest mobile operator which handles the subscriber base of over 122 million has just 25,000 employees which make the customer-employee ratio to 10,500 customers per employee.

While on the other end, BSNL has a subscriber base of 65 million wireless subscribers and 27.9 million fixed-line users and keeping in mind its 3-lakh users, its employee-customer ratio comes to as low as 350 customers pre employee. The committee has recommended a 30% stake sale where a share could be taken by a strategic investor or the funds could also be raised through an IPO. The committee expects a large chunk of these funds to be allocated to the VRS of the employees.