THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMUNICATIONS (SHRI TAPAN SIKDAR)
(a) The number of persons on the waiting list for telephone connections in the North East States including in the village of Tripura, State-wise is given below:
Name of State Waiting list as on 30.06.2000
Arunachal Pradesh 1215 Manipur 6065 Meghalaya 2799 Mizoram 3227 Nagaland 1617 Tripura 14895
Total for N.E. 29818
(b) The wait listed persons are likely to be provided telephone connections by the end of current financial year.
(c) Out of 4338 VPTs, 1258 are not working which is 29% of total Village Public telephones. The telephones in Sub Divisional Headquarters, District Headquarters and other towns are functioning properly. Whenever faults are reported they are being attended to promptly.
(d) Poor road communications, remoteness and inaccessibility due to Hilly Terrain, natural calamities like flood, land slide due to heavy rain etc are the main reasons for delay in the rectification of faults
(e) The following steps are being taken in this regard:
1. New system like TDMA PMP, Satellite VPT and WLL are being introduced in the network.
2. Faulty units are being repaired by the manufactures.
3. Annual Maintenance Contract has already been entered into with M/s Shyam Telecom.
4. Repair centre for MARR at Shillong and Agartala have been opened and started functioning.
5. Daily monitoring of MARR VPTs and Earth Stations has been started.
6. Training on maintenance and installation of MARR systems has been given to staff of all the SSAs.
