MTNL brings out updated directory

“We had to change three printers to get the book out, and this being a government venture the process involved in the selection or even in cancellation was slightly long,” he said. According to Rajan, the directories will be distributed from April 1 and will be in two phases. Phase I starting on April 1, will allow customers to exchange their 1994 directory with the Phone Book, but only after they produce the original paid bill for the month March/April 1999. Phase II begins from May 16.

Those customers who do not have the 1994 directory will get their copy of the Phone Book on producing the original paid bills for the months of March/April 1999 and May/June 1999. Rajan informed that distribution would initially take place from eight different places — one under each area general manager.

These eight distribution centres are Eastern Court, Janpath (Central); Hauz Khas telephone exchange (South-I); Nehru Palce telephone exchange (South-II); Janakpuri telephone exchange (West-I); Rajouri Garden (West-II); Delhi Gate telephone exchange (East); Shakti Nagar telephone exchange (North) and F-49, Malhotra Building, Madhu Vihar (Trans-Yamuna). Moreover, customers can also purchase the Phone Book at a price of Rs 200 from the Customer Service Centre, Khurshid Lal Bhawan, Eastern Court and Nehru Place telephone exchange.

“Distribution is being done in phases to ensure smoothness in operations and not because we have limited number of copies. There are as many as 15 lakh copies, which are more than enough. So there is no need for the customers to panic,” said Rajan. Listing out the features of the new Phone Book, Rajan said the book has been printed on re-cycled waste paper and the entire data as listed in the phone Book is corrected up to October 20, 1998. Besides this, the MTNL has segregated the residential and the business customers under two separate sections for convenience.

According to him, the first volume contains 16 multi-coloured pages comprising of special information, including tourist information on Delhi. Volume III lists out business entries under heads mentioning private and government undertakings, corporations, banks, embassies, hospitals and hotels. The entries of the Central Government ministries, NCT Delhi government, other state governments, MPs’ list, MLAs’ list and so on have been especially printed in blue to make reference work easy.