Business transactions, railway and healthcare services, all dependent on telephone connections, were severely hit on Friday as executives of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) continued their ?work-to-rule? agitation, throwing out of gear almost all channels of communications.

Throughout the day, subscribers faced difficulty establishing connection between stationary phones and from stationary phones to mobiles, as maintenance staff struggled to patch up faults. Even ?over-the-counter? operations, including submission of bills or lodging of a complaint, were hit, as most staff stayed away from working full-time.

Telephone services continue to be disrupted, with railway reservation systems being severely hit, as 4,000 BSNL executives across the state completed four days of non-cooperation. Eastern Railway officers confirmed that 143 of the 354 public reservation system centres were affected on Thursday.

Though the situation in the city improved on Friday, with only 14 centres remaining cut off, the neighbouring areas of Agartala, Shillong and Patna and their adjacent centres were seriously hit. Thirty centres were unable to offer services. The Ranchi section of Southeastern Railway was affected.

The United Forum for BSNL Executives is demanding implementation of upgradation of emoluments according to BSNL pay-scales on a time-barred basis. Since March 15, landline-users have faced difficulties in accessing mobile phones other than CellOne. Long-distance calls were also affected, though the situation improved later in the day.

Sources in Calcutta Telephones said BSNL has asked senior officials and circle heads not to leave town.

BSNL has also set up a monitoring cell to supervise the performance of trunk automatic exchanges that route long-distance calls. The control room will send reports twice a day to the head office on disruption of services.

Discussions with the executives, which started on Thursday, have reached a deadlock. Members of the United Forum said they would continue with the agitation till a decision is taken.

At private and state-run hospitals, patients faced problems connecting with doctors, while at the city police headquarters, cops had a trying time getting across to senior officers on their mobile phones. Work at over 100 railway reservations counters was affected. At the end of the day, the top brass of Calcutta Telephones shied away from facing the media. Late in the evening, chief general manager S.P. Chakrabarty held an emergency meeting with the agitating executives and sought their intervention to ensure that basic telecom services were in place during the agitation.