Imphal, October 07: Taking off from Connecting India, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is set to connect all parts of the State and has started the ground work to extend full coverage of all modes telecommunication all over the State.

Addressing the media during an interaction programme today, General Manager of BSNL, Telecom district, Manipur, T Krishnama Raju said, "To extend full coverage, we have selected 106 villages under the Universal Service Obligation (USO), Phase I" .

The GM explained that over and above the 76 BTS sites, another 60 have been identified for installation of new BTSs under Phase V.I plan and added that the work is in progress.

The new BTSs will be installed with VSAT satellite media connectivity.

At the moment there are 1.5 lakh mobile, 50,000 land line, 1000 broad band, 10,000 WLL and 200 ED-VO card BSNL subscribers in Manipur.

To meet the growing demand for telecommunication services, BSNL has also inducted new technologies and has been trying to reduce the communication divide between the urban and rural areas, said Raju.

The GM added that broad band in wire line, Sancharnet (internet), leased lines, and WLL are some of the services offered in both rural and urban areas.

Talking about GSM mobile, the GM said that there are 73 BTSs covering all the nine districts spread across 29 out of the 38 sub-divisions and added that three more BTSs will be added in the next few days.

At the moment, the GSM is switched on at the MSC at Shillong and to improve service, one MSC has also been at Imphal and will be operational in one month's time.

On land line service, the GM informed that there are 54 BSNL telephone exchanges in the State covering the nine districts.

Damages to the external cable network and cable thefts were set backs last year, he added.

With the introduction of the broad band, the demand for land line has increased, said Raju and added that attractive revised and reduced rental and revised call tariffs for land line have been effected to make it more subscribers friendly.

So far 2315 villages have been identified under the 2001 Census for Village Public Telephones and 1649 have been provided the said facility.

However because of the volatile law and order situation as well as the erratic power supply, many of the VPTs are functioning, said the GM and added that the issue has been brought to the notice of the State Government.

There is a plan to bring almost all the remaining villages under the DSPT (Satellite phones), possibly the end of the current fiscal, added the BSNL official.

To a query, the GM said that around 3500 BSN mobile SIM connections have been disconnected for unathorised registration.

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