SOS call from phone booth owners

‘World at your fingertips’ is what the advent of mobile phones might  have meant for the majority of us. But, for year 40-year-old Francis  Mariyan, who lost both his legs to polio, this little device has only meant debt, poverty and unending hopelessness.

Mariyan belongs to the community of physically-challenged people who were  provided with telephone booths at railway stations across the country.

The incentive was given to the physically-challenged as a means of  livelihood in 1981 by the then Indira Gandhi government as part of the initiates under the International Year of Disabled Persons.

By the early 2000s, the initiative was at its peak, with the owners being  able to make a decent living out of their little phone booths lined up together in all the major railway stations. Those were days when one would find people queuing up and breaking into fights to get a minute or so in these booths.  “There were times when we used to make as much as Rs 10,000 a month from the   booth. Each day there would be at least 150 customers. This has changed now. Today, you are lucky if you can make Rs 500 a month. But, from this meager  sum, you have to pay Rs 900 as rent to the Railways and more than 60 per cent  of the total sum goes to BSNL apart from electricity and licence fee. All this would mean nothing but debt,” said Mariyan.

Today, most phone booths remain closed since the owners are unable to pay  their dues to the Railway. At Ernakulam North Railway station, out of the four telephone booths - two belonging to physically-challenged and the other two to visually-challenged - three have been shut down. The only one left is that of Mariyan and he has two years of his bills pending.

 Even the Rs 10,000 he received from the Chief Minister’s Relief fund is nowhere enough to pay his dues.

Though many disabled ones requested the Railways permissions to start  Internet cafes or other business, there has been no response.

“Converting phone booths to Internet cafes is not easy as one has to deposit  an amount running into lakhs to start such a venture. Besides, after the audits the railways is now looking at shutting these booths,” said a senior officer with the Railways.

And, Francis Mariyan, with his two school-going kids, wife and mother to support, can only blame the mobile phone.