— Photo: T. Singaravelou

YEOMEN SERVICE: Sanchar Sarathy Awardees of BSNL Cuddalore Circle with officials.

CUDDALORE: T.S. Kuppuswamy, Principal General Manager of Tamil Nadu Telecom Circle, Chennai, conferred the Sanchar Seva Padak and Bharat Sanchar Sarathy Awards on eight employees of BSNL, Cuddalore division, here on Wednesday.

The Sanchar Seva Padak awardees are: — K. Raveendran, divisional engineer, Cuddalore; A.K. Musa, sub-divisional engineer, Villupuram; and N. Nagarajan, junior telecom officer, Cuddalore.

Mr. Raveendran came in for special mention for his yeomen service during the natural disasters such as floods, cyclone and the tsunami. When the bridge across the Manimuktha at Vriddhachalam collapsed in November 2004, he restored the connectivity in 12 telephone exchanges within 24 hours.

When the tsunami struck Cuddalore on December 26, 2004 the volume of traffic leapfrogged: ie., it was five times more than the normal traffic, and yet, Mr Raveendran managed to keep all the exchanges functional so they would not get bogged down in congestion.

Besides this, Mr Raveendran also arranged for 27 free telephone connections at the temporary shelters, government hospital and departments to undertake speedy relief and rehabilitation measures for the sake of the tsunami-affected people.

Similarly, soon after the tsunami left a trail of devastation Mr. Nagarajan provided uninterrupted telecommunication service and created wireless in local loop (WLL) numbers.

The Sanchar Sarathy Awardees are: — Ms. Ebenezer William, senior section supervisor, M. Karthikeyan, senior telephone supervisor, N. Radhamani, telegraph master, R. Nandakumar, telecom mechanic (all from Cuddalore) and S. Revathi, telecom technical assistant, Ulundurpet.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Kuppuswamy said in the next couple of months the BSNL cell phone subscriber base would touch 18-19 lakh against the installed capacity of 14.5 lakh. By the end of this fiscal, the number of broadband subscribers might go up to one lakh. Cuddalore division general managers P. Chinnaiyan (Telecom) and T. Rajendran (Development), Kumbakonam division general manager A.Md. Abubacker, Cuddalore division deputy general managers S. Narayanan (Administration) and E.V. Venkatesan (Finance), and public relations officer Ilangovan participated.

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