DJ Venkatesh & John Wilbert
Port Blair, April 10: Lack of proper Air conditioning units inside the exchanges of Bharat Sanchar Nigam limited in N & M Andaman is reportedly causing disruption in services, villagers allege.
Major exchanges like Rangat , Diglipur, Mayabunder are having maximum electronic equipments. Small Exchanges can be operated with open windows and fans while bigger exchanges required cooling of equipments.
As per sources, initially all exchanges were equipped with Air Conditioning Units. Later after these ACs became old and unusable, they were not replaced with new ACs.
Out of seven ACs only three are presently working inside Diglipur Exchange. Temperature in C-DOT Exchanges are above 35 degree without AC as the temperature radiated within closed room, which should be around 22 degree for optimum functioning of these equipment, sources alleged.
In Billyground all ACs are reportedly not available, in Betapur Kadamtala and other small exchanges the situation is more or less the same.
Experts say that in Andaman from March to June ACs are required otherwise the exchanges develop problems.
However, the allegations of the residents of Billyground and Diglipur were totally refuted by the Chief General Manager, BSNL, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Mr V Jagadeeshan.
Talking to Andaman Sheekha, Mr Jagadeeshan said that the temperature of Islands is good and thus here the exchanges do not require an Air Conditioner.
“Though sometimes if the temperature is high, the staffs open the windows, ” Mr Jagadeeshan said.
Now, it is the public to decide whether the reply of the CGM is acceptable as most of the time the network of North and Middle Andaman are down for some of the other reasons.
Another major question is if ACs are not required for equipments then whey all BSNL units in Andaman has so many ACs installed?
Mr Jagadeeshan also said that the Network collapses in North and Middle Andaman because the cable cuts because of the NHIDCL and Defense works, along ATR.
