Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 18: In the wake of continuous snapping of cellular services of private mobile operators due to unrest, people in Kashmir have started to turn towards State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) as only BSNL is operational across the region.
A large number of people today were queuing up at BSNL exchanges here to get new postpaid connections. People were taking forms for getting new connections while some were also seen asking for procedure to convert their existing BSNL prepaid connections to postpaid.
On Government directions, the mobile cellular services of all private operators in Kashmir are shut for last 5 days due to violent protests that have claimed 40 lives. The outgoing services of BSNL pre-paid are also shut and only postpaid of the BSNL is working as almost all the police and administrative officials subscribe to its services in the Valley.
A top official of BSNL when contacted said that the new postpaid connections would be issued to only police officials and journalists. “The ordinary people as of now won’t be issued any postpaid connection,” he said, adding: “these directions have come directly from our headquarters.” He, however, confirmed that people had turned up at BSNL exchanges in large numbers.
Apart from getting new connections, the subscribers of BSNL also thronged its exchanges to clear their outstanding bills of existing connections including that of landline phone – that have largely become defunct since the introduction of prepaid connections of private cellular companies. The snapping down of mobile services has given a new life to the BSNL which was fast losing its customers in Valley because of poor services.
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