Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 14: The cellular and internet services of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) remained completely snapped in several parts of six districts of Jammu region for more than 10 hours today due to damage to its Optical Fibre Cable by the Public Health Engineering Department causing inconvenience to lakhs of subscribers.
Official sources in BSNL told EXCELSIOR that Public Health Engineering Department caused intensive damage to the Optical Fibre Cable of the BSNL while carrying out digging work in Roop Nagar area this morning as a result of which cellular and internet services got snapped.
Though the Public Health Engineering Department was required to give prior information to the concerned authorities of BSNL about digging work, none from the department bothered to follow the laid down guidelines, they said.
Due to snapping of cellular and internet services, lakhs of subscribers of BSNL in the areas of Kachi Chawani, Janipur and Bantalab in Jammu, Akhnoor, Samba, Billawar, R S Pura, twin border districts of Rajouri and Poonch and Doda faced inconvenience for more than 10 hours.
Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, while reacting over the snapping of internet and cellular services, tweeted: “If there is a worse ISP than BSNL then I have not come across it”.
Soon after getting information about severe damage to OFC at Roop Nagar, senior officers of BSNL deputed engineers to repair the cable but in view of intensive damage it took around 10 hours to them to restore the cellular and internet services. GMTD Jammu, GM Mobile and other senior officers of BSNL personally monitored the restoration of OFC at Roop Nagar.
However, none from the PHE Department, whose carelessness caused inconvenience to lakhs of people, bothered to visit the spot, sources said, adding “this indicates that PHE Department’s officers had no regret over the damage to OFC and non-adherence of the guidelines”.
The affected subscribers continued to make telephone calls to the senior officers of the BSNL from the network of other cellular companies throughout the day seeking information about the restoration of services, they said, adding due to snapping of internet services the functioning in many private offices remained affected during the day. Even large number of students could not fill various forms on-line because of non-availability of internet services.
After hectic efforts, the BSNL engineers succeeded in restoring cellular and internet services at around 8 pm thereby providing respite to the subscribers.
It is pertinent to mention here that damage to OFC by different Government agencies while carrying out construction/developmental works has become a routine in Jammu and Kashmir and despite repeated concerns by the BSNL no precautions are being taken.
When contacted, Chief Engineer, PHE Department, K K Gupta, while admitting that OFC got damaged due to digging by the department, said, “the damage to OFC was brought to the notice of BSNL by our Junior Engineer”, adding “the JE along with Assistant Executive Engineer remained at the spot till the restoration of services by the BSNL engineers”.
He, however, said that BSNL had not taken permission from the PHE Department while laying OFC cable.
Meanwhile, large number of people held protest demonstration against BSNL authorities in Mendhar and Ramnagar towns.
Shouting slogans against the BSNL authorities, they alleged that snapping of internet and cellular service in these areas has become a routine and nobody from the BSNL was bothered about taking measures to improve the services.
At Mendhar, the people alleged that whenever power supply to the areas snaps nobody from the BSNL comes forward to operate generators as a result of which mobile service towers remain non-functional.
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