CHANDIGARH: The first private telephone in the state of Punjab would be installed at the latest by May 1997.

The private telephone service would be provided in the Punjab circle by Essar Commission Limited, which had emerged the highest bidder in the tenders for the privatization of telecom services in this region.

Talking about the pricing of the private telephone services, Dr, Smita Swarup, DGM (Corporate Strategy) revealed that the maximum rate which they can charge is the official department of Telecom (DoT) rates. “Once the privatization process starts, our company aims to provide one million, telephone connections in the state,” Apart from this, the company aims to give 5,000 villages’ public telephones in the first year.

Article extracted from this publication >>May 1, 1996