Calcutta, May 10: Calcutta Telephones (CalTel) has set a target of 2,17,000 CellOne connections in the current financial year.

With just over 26,000 subscribers in its kitty, CalTel has decided to take up the challenge and will start distributing its Excel pre-paid SIM cards from Wednesday.

Confirming the move, sources said 8,000 SIM cards would be distributed through 17 customer service centres in Calcutta and 4,000 more through dealers and retail outlets.

The pre-paid segment plays an important role in increasing the subscriber base and constitutes 70 to 80 per cent of the total base of any mobile service provider.

The company has not planned any promotional activity to announce the launch. Last time, when it had started giving out post-paid connections to existing subscribers during a switch changeover, there was an agitation due to non-delivery of SIM cards.

Calcutta Telephones had stopped issuing new connections after it had exhausted switch capacity in January this year.

The company has now augmented its capacity to accommodate one lakh subscribers. It will further enhance capacity in the second phase of expansion in July.

Fifty four cell sites were added to the existing 87 for Rs 32 crore.

CalTel’s mobile service has always faced problems.

“We were on a C-DoT switch when the entire country came under the CellOne brand. It took us some time to move to Ericsson switches and then compatibility was an issue,” said a company official.

BSNL had started a pilot project for mobile services in Calcutta and Patna, both of which failed. This time, however, the company plans to focus on increasing the mobile subscriber base as its fixed line is proving tough business.