Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 31 (IANS): In accordance with the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS), 4,589 BSNL employees in Kerala have bowed out of office, and Friday was their last day of working in the organisation.

After this, the BSNL will be left with 4,711 BSNL employees to service the operations in the state.

In whole of the country, a total of 78,569 employees will retire on Friday, and there will be around 70,000 employees left.

A union leader of the BSNL here said that even with its full strength of employees, BSNL from 2008 to 2010 had registered a profit of Rs 10,000 crores.

But a top official of the BSNL here said this VRS is not going to affect the daily operations of BSNL and there will be no issues for the customers at all.

However, customers seem to be apprehensive.

"Ever since VRS was announced, the service quality in the BSNL services has dropped considerably. It's been a week since our landline has stopped working. Despite numerous complaints, nothing has happened," said a concerned BSNL landline subscriber here.