North Andaman’s Crucial Telephone Exchange in horrible shape

DJ Venkatesh
Diglipur, Aug 12: A crucial telephone exchange in North Andaman is on the verge of shutdown due to acute shortage of staff. According to reports, just 3 permanent staffs have been running the affairs of C DOT MBM at Diglipur, the second largest exchange in these islands after Port Blair and caters to telecom service upto Shivapuram via Mayabunder.
The exchange has a subscriber base of a whopping 50,000 mobile phones and around 800 landlines utilising the services of 13 GSM BTS, 10 WLL towers and about 150 Broadband connections along with about 15 leased lines for Railways, Shipping, Banks and Schools. Besides, the C DOT MBM Telephone Exchange also handles 8 MB satellite station and operates diesel generator sets at the towers in all remote villages of Diglipur Sub Division.
But sources claim that the massive telecom establishment is managed by only 3 permanent staff and five regular mazdoors.
In several visits in the last five months, this Correspondent found only a Junior Telecom Office and one regular mazdoor in the attendance.
Substitutes of four regular mazdoors transferred to Port Blair by BSNL are yet to report for duty at the Diglipur Exchange, while four regular mazdoors were recently transferred redcuing the staff strength to just three.
The telephone exchange has also been suffering due to poor maintenance and repairs over the years.
According to reports, the Air conditioners installed in the C-DOT exchange remained defunct for over an year now and the staff are forced to keep to the doors and window panes open to allow fresh air to keep the exchange cool.
Similarly, satellite equipments and generator room have been covered by polythene sheets to prevent damages from rain and dust. The air conditioners which were declared obsolete after inspection conducted more than a year ago are still awaiting replacement and official files pertaining to expenditure for procurement of ACs worth around 2 lakhs are doing the rounds in various divisions of BSNL headquarters at Port Blair.
“With Chinese presence just 43 km away from Diglipur and Burma located 320 km, one can easily imagine the security preparedness of the government agencies particularly the leading telecom service provider BSNL. A massive telephone exchange is managed by just a handful of staff attending hundreds of complaints on a daily basis. It takes months for restoration of telephone faults reported from various parts of remote North Andaman and in case of any major breakdown, the region will find its cut off from other parts of these islands due to communication failure. On every issue, the BSNL authorities blamed the West Bengal government for shortage of funds and maintenance of equipments. If the BSNL is incapable of ensuring proper telecom services in the strategically located North Andaman region, it should hand over the communication apparatus to the Andaman and Nicobar Administration,” opined some residents of Diglipur.