CHENNAI: Officials of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and its customers are peeved over the development works undertaken by Metro Water in Ambattur and Avadi after the underground cables snapped resulting in loss of connectivity as well as nearly Rs195 lakh to the public sector telecom firm.Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, C Periyasamy, general manager (north), said a lot of cables have been damaged after Metro Water undertook sewage and drainage works in the area using JCB machines resulting in poor quality of telecom and broadband services.“Last year, we urged Metro Water and state highways department at a coordination committee meeting to notify us prior to undertaking any work or identifying the cables through a trial pit. They did follow the norms initially but during the last four months, BSNL is again facing the problem as its cables are again being damaged due to lack of coordination,” Periyasamy said.Interestingly, BSNL has even filed police complaints after the losses started mounting. Sources said that the police only took complaints but never filed an FIR against the erring contractors or officials.“The loss is such that BSNL may fall 15 per cent short of its projected revenue of 65 per cent this year. The company has lost Rs 40 lakh revenue due to disruption of services last financial year. But during the last four months, we have incurred a loss of Rs 45 lakh due to disruption of telephone and broadband services,” he said.Giving out statistics, Haridas said during the financial year 2010-11, there were about 4,000 cable faults but during the last four months, 1,500 cable faults have been detected due to the development works carried out by Metro Water.Even the estimated material loss (cables, jointing kits) due to cable damage during the last financial year was `80 lakh, but for the last four months, the public sector unit has incurred a loss of `30 lakh. And what is more that BSNL has spent `85 lakh for tracing and attending the cable faults last financial year, said Haridas, BSNL deputy general manager of Ambattur operation and maintenance.Currently, BSNL has about 73,000 land lines and 36,000 broadband connections in Ambattur, Avadi and Poonamallee.“We are not against development work. It is equally necessary. We want Metro Water authorities to realise that in the name of providing new service to the public existing telephone service, which is equally essential, should not suffer,” said Periyasamy.The frequent snapping of cables had even resulted in BSNL customers surrendering their phone and broadband connections. “The cost of development works itself has been high, as 25 per cent of the 800 surrendered services is due to this problem,” said a BSNL official.
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