Once again, the telephone cables of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) have got damaged during a drilling process undertaken by a private telecom company, causing hardships for more than 3,000 landline subscribers of Mata Rani exchnage. The damaged cables include one cable of 1200 pairs and two cables of 800 pairs each. The telephone subscribers of Dana Mandi, Sabji Mandi, Jalandhar bye-pass and adjoining localities have been facing lot of problems because of this.According to Rakesh Kumar, Deputy General Manager, Operations, and Mata Rani area, “It was around 10 am today when we started getting a lot of complaints of landline subscribers of this area. After checking, we saw that a private company has deployed some workers near Jalandhar bye-pass for laying its cables through drilling. On being asked, they said that they are from BSNL. I was shocked to hear it as BSNL has not started any cable laying work in this area. After some time, one of their workers said that they have been deployed by a private company.” The DGM said that he was more surprised when he saw a horizontal directional machine installed in a truck. He said, “On this truck was written ‘BSNL/MTNL’ Government of India. I immediately asked as to whom does this vehicle belong to, the workers again said that this truck belonged to a private company. It is ridiculous that by using the name of BSNL, a private compnay started drilling near Jalandhar bye-pass and also damaged our cables. We will lodge an FIR against all this menace.”Meanwhile, B.S. Shukla, who hired the machine from Delhi, said, “It does not belong to me. I have hired it from Delhi. It is the company who has written BSNL/MTNL, Government of India on it and not me. I hired it for the work of this telephone company.”The DGM said that during the drilling process, the company workers not only damaged the cables of landline subscribers but also damanged an optical fiber which was linked with a tower catering to the cellphone subscribers of BSNL. Meanwhile, the repair work has started under the supervision of BSNL officers.It needs to be mentioned that this private company has damaged telephone cables for the second time within 15 days. Earlier, they had damaged these cables near Gill Road and it took about three days to repair them.
