Port Blair, Feb 28: Mr. Kuldeep Rai Sharma, President, PCC alongwith Mrs. Abala Samaddar, ZP Adhyasksha and Mrs. Balbir Kaur, ZP Upadhyaksha met Mr. V Raju, Chief General Manager, BSNL to discuss the connectivity problems faced by the public using BSNL.
Mr. Sharma appraised Mr. V Raju about the problems faced by the residents of Campbell Bay, Havelock and Neil Islands because of the poor or no connectivity of BSNL. Mr. Sharma added that residents of Gandhi Nagar and Joginder Nagar under Campbell Bay are the worst sufferers due to non availability of BSNL services there. Speaking for the people of these Islands Mr. Sharma told that that people residing in scattered Islands fully depend upon BSNL connectivity for their day to day communication requirements and during urgency they are not able to contact their near and dear ones immediately because of which they face many hardships. Mr. Sharma has also stated that Kalapathhar under Havelock, also lack BSNL connectivity and the residents of the area feel helpless since they don’t have any other mode of communication and in Neil Islands also poor connectivity is making people suffer a lot.
Mr. Raju, Chief General Manager, BSNL in his reply stated that he had joined the Andaman and Nicobar Telecom Circle on 10th December, 2012, since then he has made several improvements including improving the Broad Band services and introducing it to Car Nicobar. Mr. Raju said that he understands the problems faced by the people due to poor connectivity and tenders are being finalized for Towers and other infrastructures and as soon this will be finalized, the towers with infrastructures will be installed and the people of these Islands will get full connectivity. Mr. Raju further informed that BSNL does not get any fund from the Government because it is a PSU and it generates its own fund and use it for spreading its network.
He also stated that BSNL is providing telecom services in all major inhabited islands of A&N Islands and complete bouquet of telecom services i.e. fixed lines, broadband, CDMA and GSM are being provided in these islands by BSNL whereas other operators are providing only GSM service that too in few Islands only.
Mr. Raju further informed that A&N being Islands, the connectivity with mainland or within Islands is only possible via satellite medium and terrestrial medium is not feasible, except the submarine cable. Presently the BSNL is using about 440 MHz of satellite capacity for providing services in A&N Group of Islands. The charges payable for the satellite capacity are about Rs. 49.81 Crores per annum. Total revenue earned from A&N Islands during 2011-12 was only Rs. 46.98 Crores, whereas expenditure excluding satellite bandwidth charges was Rs. 52.81 Crores. He added though the BSNL in A&N circle is running under huge loss since 2009-10 yet the tariff charged by BSNL to its customers in these Islands is same as applicable in other parts of the Country where usage of satellite bandwidth is not involved. However, Mr. Raju has assured Mr.Sharma to provide better services to the customers of these Islands in coming days.
