"The strike of BSNL employees will end at midnight tonight," V A N Namboodri, convener of the joint forum of BSNL and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited employees, said in New Delhi.
The strike, which started at 0600 hrs, was a 'complete success' and workers of all the unions were off work, he said.
The employees went on strike to protest the delay in awarding contracts for laying 45.5 million GSM lines to the selected vendors -- Ericsson and Nokia.
BSNL had last year selected the two companies for expanding its mobile network, but disqualified US equipment supplier Motorola dragged the public sector firm to Delhi high court. Motorola later dropped the case, but
BSNL is yet to award the contract to the selected vendors.
Raja appealed to the employees on Wednesday to end their stir in the interest of the country and the company.
According to an official statement, Raja also assured them the interest of BSNL and its employees would be protected.
BSNL has 3.5 crore fixed lines and 2.4 crore mobile subscribers and is the largest telecom operator with operations in regions except Mumbai and Delhi.
The staff union wanted a written assurance from DoT on its demand that the contract for laying 45.5 million GSM lines would be placed to the selected vendors and that BSNL would not drop the 3G component from the contract.
Raja had earlier asked BSNL to drop 3G component from the tender as there was no policy on third generation networks. He had also asked the company to negotiate with Ericsson to reduce the contract price.
