Imphal, April 02: Although the Bharat Sanchar Ningam Limited (BSNL) launched the mobile phone service in the State amidst great fanfare last year, the poor quality of the service has left many subscribers disillusioned and fuming.

As the BSNL has failed to provide proper and efficient service to the subscribers even under the Manipur Secondary Switching Area (SSA), some of the subscribers have contemplated filling court cases against the service provider while many others have outrightly refused to pay pending bills.

When The Sangai Express contacted the BSNL office here in Imphal, an official disclosed that the difficulties being faced by the subscribers were mainly due to location of the Main Switching Centre (MSC) at Shillong and lack of adequate equipments.

The officer, nevertheless, asserted that efforts are being made to overcome these shortcomings so that the problems encountered by the subscribers of the first phase do not recur when the second phase commences.

The officer went on to say that Manipur being a small State with very few people having access to mobile phone service, it is not yet justifiable for installing a separate MSC.

Even then, to solve the difficulties faced by the subscribers, the number of Base Transmitting Station (BTS) and Inter-State Junction would be increased.

By July, the number of BTS would be doubled, he informed.

While informing that the works for laying the Optimal Fibre Cable (OFC) till Kohima is in progress, the officer said that the task is expected to be completed within the month of May.

By June, there would be definitely some improvement in the mobile phone service, he assured.

Over and above the 13,300 Post-Paid Mobile Phone, so far 300 Pre-Paid Mobile Phone have been activated.

BSNL is keeping a target of issuing 2000 Prepaid Mobile Phones during the first phase.

However, efforts are being made with right earnest to provide not less than 25,000 Post-Paid and Pre-Paid Mobile Phone by July this year under Manipur SSA.

Over and above the nine existing BTSs, arrangement are also being made to install 10 more BTSs at places like Manipur University, Sagolband, Thangmeiband, Keishamthong, Wangkhei, Kongba, Moirangkhom and Imphal Bazar.

The work for installing the BTS at MU is currently being taken up, and it is almost completed, the officer added.

On the other hand, the disillusioned subscribers complained against the poor quality of the service provided to them.

While asserting that the BSNL not only extended free concessional call facilities to the subscribers in other parts of the country when the mobile phone service were launched but also waived the bills if the service provided was not up to standard, the disgruntled subscribers rued that no such facilities have been ever thought of for Manipur.

They further complained that they could not get the line for the whole day with the service provider giving all sorts of misleading answers like 'Call subscriber is busy, please dial after sometime' 'All lines in this route are busy, please dial after sometime', 'The subscriber is not reachable, please try after sometime', 'The number you have dial does not exist', 'The subscriber is currently switched off', 'Incoming call facility to the dial number is currently not available'.

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