The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Madurai News : BSNL gearing to face challenges

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Madurai

BSNL gearing to face challenges

Staff Reporter

Transparency in billing is our greatest strength, says Chief General Manager

A moment of pride: The Chief General Manager, Tamil Nadu Telecom Circle, K. Sridhara (sitting second from right), along with the winners of Sanchar Seva Padak and Bharat Sanchar Sarathy Awards 2005 at a function held in the city on Monday. The Madura i Divisional Railway Manager, B.N. Rajasekhar (sitting in the centre), looks on. Photo: S. James.

MADURAI: The Tamil Nadu circle of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is confident of taking head on private mobile operators with its second major roll out in the mobile sector next month.

"We are so confident of our network that no other operator will be able to compete with us," its Chief General Manager, K. Sridhara, told The Hindu here on Monday.

The BSNL, which is the third player to enter the mobilephone market, is marching fast on subscriber base.

The wider coverage by the BSNL propelled a huge demand for its SIM cards, especially pre-paid service, forcing the public sector company to give 9.1 lakh working connections as against the equipped capacity of 6.25 lakh connections.

"We made use of more than the optimum utility of every base trans-receiver station based on the volume of traffic in respective BTSs, so that more customers could be accommodated," he said.

With the BSNL preparing to commission 8.5 lakh more mobile connections by June, Mr. Sridhara hopes to have a sudden surge in subscriber base.

"The transparency in billing is our greatest strength," he added.

With inter-service area connectivity allowed by the Union Government, making mobile-to-mobile and landline-to-mobile calls between Chennai and rest of Tamil Nadu local from May 25, Mr. Sridhara believes that the mobile phone service is going to become the most-preferred choice for telephone users.

Awards given away

Earlier, speaking at a function held to give away Sanchar Seva Padak and Bharat Sanchar Sarathy Awards 2005 to meritorious employees of Madurai Telecom District, Mr. Sridhara said the total number BTS would touch 2000-mark in the circle very soon.

Apart from 8.25 lakh new connections, the BSNL is planning to expand the capacity further by four lakh connections to improve its coverage.

In order to clear the one-lakh wait-list for landline phones, the BSNL proposes to add one lakh wireless in local loop (WLL) connections to the existing 1.3 lakh equipped capacity.

Urging the employees to improve on customer care, he warned that even small aberrations forced long-time customers to switch to private operators.

Spelling out the creation of `BSNLism' in customer care, he said subscribers should have the confidence that "BSNL employees will be at office at 10 a.m. and their problems can be solved by any official in the office."

The Principal General Manager (Operations), T.S. Kuppuswamy, said that in order to reduce the fault rate, the BSNL was planning to provide `pole-less network' for 10 lakh subscribers.

The Madurai Divisional Railway Manager, B.N. Rajasekhar, gave away the awards.

Awardees

Sanchar Seva Padak: Chief Accounts Officer, P. Gandhi Arumugam, Sub-Divisional Engineer, P. Mariappan, Junior Telecom Officer, N. Devendran, and Telecom Mechanic, P. Murugan.

Bharat Sanchar Sarathy Awards: Deputy Office Superintendent, P. Marudhai, Telecom Technical Assistant, A. Vincent, Telegraph Man, R. Rajendran, and Senior Telephone Operating Assistant, S. Rajeswari. M.K. Sudarsanam, General Manager, Madurai Telecom, welcomed the gathering.

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