Calcutta Phones Doubles Administrative Zones

K R Ramanujam, chief general manager of Calcutta Telephones told Business Standard that the five administrative zones were doubled from yesterday.

This is the first reorganisation of administrative areas since 1976 when the present five administrative areas were carved out of the total 2,200 square km that came under Calcutta Telephones. During the last two decades, the number of subscribers has gone up from 1.6 lakh to 4.6 lakh, which will soon reach 5 lakh.

The present north and south areas will be divided into three areas each. The present Howrah area will be divided into two. The central and city areas will remain unchanged.

 

Ramanujam said, All the new areas will have separate offices. Though the notional reorganisation takes place from October 1, it may take about three months to find separate offices for all the 10 areas after which they will start full-fledged functioning.

The north and south areas now have over 1.5 lakh subscribers which has made them unmanageable.

Though the Howrah area does not have too many subscribers, the size is too large. It is being divided into parts falling within the Howrah district and the Hooghly district.

Calcutta Telephones has the largest geographical boundary among all the metropolitan telephone networks in the country. Its boundary extends from Kalyani to Baruipur from the north to the south and from Dumdum to Uluberia from the east to the west.

The area managers each of these five areas were finding the burden too heavy.

Five more area managers will now take charge of the five newly created areas. Each area will have a maximum of 50,000 subscribers.

Calcutta Telephones now has a total strength of 16,600. The staff are managed by about 800 assistant engineers, about 100 divisional engineers, 27 deputy general managers and area managers, five general managers and one chief general manager.

Though the number of subscribers is 4.6 lakh, the exchange capacity is 5 lakh spread over 73 exchanges. Of them, 62 are electronic exchanges while seven are pentaconta cross bar and four C-400 cross bar exchanges.

The number of subscribers is expected to double within the next 4-5 years, Ramanujam said. The capacity augmentation will require an investment of Rs 1,250 crore by the year 2000. The present level of annual expenditure is around Rs 200 crore which will have to increase to Rs 250-300 crore a year to reach the required investment target.

Of the annual revenue of Rs 600 crore, about Rs 125 crore is rental income. He estimated that about 60-65 per cent of the total revenue comes from direct subscriber trunk dialling within and outside the country.

There has been a sharp increase in the waiting list. From about 40,000 on the waiting list three years ago, the size has gone up to 70,000. A slowdown in investment and a faster demand growth has led to lengthening of the waiting list during the last three years, according to telephone officials.

Ramanujam expects to add another 1.5 lakh capacity within the next 15 months, and hopes to offer telephone on demand in most of the exchanges.