(a) whether the Government propose to hand over the responsibility of repair and maintenance of telephones services provided in the rural areas so far to private companies as most of the telephone connections are out of order; and
(b) if not, the strategy made by the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited to repair the said rural telephones?
THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY COMMUNICATIONS (SHRI TAPAN SIKDAR)
(a) No, Sir.
(b) Following are the main reasons for frequent interruption of telecom services in rural areas:
i) Prolonged power breakdowns.
ii) Unreliable transmission media.
iii) Poor road connectivity which hampers movement of line staff and officers.
Inspite of unreliable power supply and poor road connectivity all efforts are made to maintain the exchanges. It has been decided to provide power supply to exchanges in rural areas by means of maintenance free battery sets and engine alternators. It has also been decided to provide reliable media connectivity to rural exchanges in a phased manner.
Apart from this following measures are taken for upkeeping of rural telecom services.
(a) Testing of VPTs are carried out daily by dialing from the exchanges. Any VPT not responding on two consecutive days is treated as faulty.
(b) Testing of MARR links are carried out daily from the base station.
(c) Meter reading are checked fortnightly and low reading is taken as an indication of the system not performing properly.