Irfan Tramboo
SRINAGAR, Oct 13: The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BNSL) has issued 8000 landline connections earning a revenue of Rs 2.5 crore since August 5 when the mobile phones were shut.
Soon after the landline services were restored in the Valley, post abrogation of Articles 370, 35-A, the BSNL’s central office in Srinagar has been witnessing huge rush of people who throng the office for clearing the outstanding amounts, restoring the old landline connections or applying for the new ones.
The officials over-seeing the operations told Excelsior that more than 8000 landline connections have been issued to the customers since August to date. “This number includes the fresh connections as well as those that were lying defunct, but have been restored now,” the official said on the condition of anonymity, adding that there are still hundreds in the pipeline while large number of applications have been rejected due to ‘non-feasibility.’
In addition to the landline connections, the official said that they have also provided more than 4000 SIM cards to the security forces personnel for last more than two months. He said that the restoration of such SIM cards was subjected to the clearance given by the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kashmir and the Commissioner Secretary, Home.
While there have been reports that the State owned telecom company has generated enormous revenue since August, the officials, however, said that they have not generated any new revenue but have managed to get back money that was lying outstanding with people for last so many years.
“There were landline connections that were lying defunct and the subscribers owed money to the company which they were not paying, now what has happened after August, those subscribers came back to us for the restoration of their connections-during that, we have so far generated a revenue of Rs 2.50 crore to date since August,” he said, adding that the money was recovered out of whooping Rs 18 crore rupees that the Non-Performing Assets (NPA) owe the company.
When asked if the BSNL was planning any expansion given the increased load that it is experiences for last few months now, in addition to the complaints of people regarding the connectivity turning erratic, the official said that the company was not planning anything of this sort as of now.
“You have to understand that the suspension of the mobile telephony is a temporary measure; they will be made functional and people will again forget about the landline connections. So we are not trying to jump-up and invest money for expansion; once everything, with regard to the communication, returns back to the normalcy, we will see if we need to do something only then,” another official said.
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