Mtnl Clears Delhi Phone Waiting List

Delhiites could almost get a telephone connection on demand now as the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), Delhi has cleared the entire waiting list in the capital except for one South Delhi exchange.

As on April 1, 1997, MTNL cleared the entire waiting list except for 2000 applications pending in Sadiq Nagar exchange in South Delhi, MTNL sources said.

Delhi had a waiting list of 56,864 at the beginning of this year in the general non-OYT (own your telephone) category, sources said adding that MTNL provided a total of 2,03,160 connections during 1996-97 bringing down the waiting list to just over 2000.

 

For the ninth five year plan, MTNL has proposed to hike the total outlay by 27 per cent to about Rs 5,400 crore from Rs 4,253 crore in the previous plan, sources said.

However, the enhanced outlay would be utilised for doubling the capacity of network with main thrust on technology upgradation. The subscriber network of MTNL remains the weakest area, as the switching exchanges and junction networks have already been upgraded to meet the increased demand.

At present 92 per cent telephone exchanges are electronic out of which 82 per cent are digital, whereas, the MTNL has set an ambitious target of converting all the exchanges into electronic by 2002. As far as the subscriber network is concerned, MTNL sources have emphasised that underground cables have to be reduced and should be replaced with optical fibres in the next few years.

MTNL has already undertaken a project involving fibre infrastructure technology at the cost of Rs 9.5 crore which would help the department for enhancing the required network capacity during the ninth five year plan, sources said.

MTNL had earlier said that telephones would be available on demand in 1997-98 and stressed the need for increasing subscriber network to achieve the objective.