DOES IT WORK? Faulty mobile instruments only add to the woes of police officials. — PHOTO: P.V. Sivakumar

HYDERABAD: One just cannot miss the irony. With low battery life and poor audible quality rendering mobile phones supplied to them by Government useless, police officers in the State capital are caught in a helpless situation. They are unable to get the instrument exchanged since the Government supplied them in bulk. "Being from a department where discipline is expected, we are not able to urge the Government to immediately supply new phones either," said a police officer seeking anonymity.

The Government had supplied some 900 mobile phones -- majority of them belonging to Alcatel company and a few to Motorola -- three years ago to the city police. "Within a few days, we realised these instruments were useless since their battery life was lowest compared to even the worst phones available in the market then," an Inspector said.

Hence, the officials have started returning them and are instead using their personal handsets. However, they retained SIM cards since all the city police personnel were under a common user group scheme. As complaints of faulty instruments kept pouring in, higher-ups brought the matter to the notice of the Government.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Administration) Ravi Gupta opines that the quality of phones, in fact, should have been much better as the usage would be very high in the Police Department. Initially, the option of buying new batteries was given a thought. But the idea was dropped since some companies were ready to supply new phones at the cost of a new battery.

"Even if a new battery was used, defects pertaining to poor audible quality and other complaints were there," he says. According to him, the city police had no idea about the conditions pertaining to replacement or repair of the instruments.

Plea to Government

What will then happen to these 900-odd instruments? Already, their functional utility has been minimal. "We're writing to the Government asking it to supply us new phones, if possible with latest features like camera and higher storage capacity," Mr. Gupta informs.

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