MTNL8217;s fault8217;ering booking system

April 1: The Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited's MTNL fault booking system at the Samata Nagar telephone exchange has been recently pla...

April 1: The Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited8217;s MTNL fault booking system at the Samata Nagar telephone exchange has been recently plagued with faults serious enough to hamper the recording of subscribers8217; complaints. As a result, nearly 1,000 affected telephone lines have been lying unattended for the last few days.

According to sources, alarm bells are not ringing at the exchange yet. Subscribers have gone to the exchange to complain in large numbers, but there has been no action on MTNL8217;s part. One subscriber told this reporter he has been struggling to get his complaint heard for the last eight days.A senior official at the exchange maintained there was no way to rectify the situation as the equipment at the exchange itself was faulty. The same equipment had earlier been installed at Versova telephone exchange, but it was shifted to Samata Nagar when the important8217; subscribers at Versova started making a noise about it, he explained.

Sources said some lines in Samata Nagar, which have been takenfrom Malad telephone exchange, have been functioning smoothly. This goes to show that the fault lies in the Samata Nagar equipment only, they added.

M K Purohit, MTNL deputy general manager, Samata Nagar, denied the number of faults had gone up to 1,000 and said they could be in the normal region of 200-300. However, he admitted the fault booking system wasn8217;t working properly and added a lot of subscribers may not have been able to book their complaints due to this. He confirmed that some units from Versova had been brought to Samata Nagar, but claimed they were working well.

Purohit said faults are generally cleared within 48 hours, and Samata Nagar is especially important to the MTNL because it has a lot of major subscribers. It is possible that the faults might be slightly higher on a particular day due to a fault in the exchange, but the situation is generally not so bad, he said. If subscribers are still unable to book their complaints on the computerised service, they can either phone the localtestroom or come to the exchange and write their complaint in a complaint book, he said.

George Chelapuram, who has been fighting for subscribers8217; rights, said the digging being carried out all over the city is one of the causes for many telephone lines being out of order. The material used by MTNL is sometimes of sub-standard quality, he said.