BSNL suffers huge losses in Sikkim
Posted by barunroy on May 9, 2008
GANGTOK, May 8: The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) in Sikkim has an outstanding amount of Rs 8.45 crore to be collected as bills from the state government and private parties for the past 10 years.
The huge outstanding amount is due to the rapid growth of mobile phones and disconnection of landline phones in the state over the past 10 years. “We are still sending reminders to the government offices for the payment of the old bills,” said Mr SN Roychowdhury, general manager Telecom, Gangtok.
“We could not chase bills from the private companies and organisations because 90 per cent of the private companies have closed,” he added. “The BSNL cannot disconnect the public service agencies like police, fire services, hospital, government secretariat, Raj Bhawan, chief minister’s and ministers’ residences,” said Mr Roychowdhury admitting that the BSNL was suffering huge losses in the state. When asked why the BSNL has not been able to provide mobile phone service to Nathu La although the Chinese have on the other side of the border the BSNL official said: “We could not provide the service because the Army has not allowed us for security reasons.” [The Statesman]
