Drop in tariff is encouraging users to make calls from their cellphones. A Telegraph picture

Public call offices or PCOs, the signposts of telecom revolution in India, are in danger of extinction with mobile phone companies coming up with attractive offers almost every month.

“Everyone has a mobile phone and with relatively low call rates, they have started making outgoing calls from them. I am on the verge of downing shutters,” says Mohammad Ibrahim, who has been running a PCO in Munsi Sadruddin Lane, off MG Road, since 1998. It was once a flourishing business but currently struggles to break even with footfall down to a trickle.

According to telecom industry sources, there are 60,000 to 70,000 PCOs in Calcutta. Shops with an average of four telephones in busy areas of the city earn about Rs 9,000 per month. “These shops used to earn 60 to 70 per cent more before mobile phones became popular,” says the head of a company that looks after the PCO business of a leading telecom service provider.

The PCO owners have also been hit by rampant illegal use of Fixed Wireless Phones (FWP). An industry estimate puts the number of roadside shops that illegally use FWPs for business at 2,000. Call charges at these illegal PCOs are less than those in legal PCOs. Thus, one illegal operator can eat into the profit of all the legal PCOs in an area.

There are over 50 PCO operators across the city who possess mobile phones of every service provider. When a customer wants to make a call to a Hutch mobile, he is handed a mobile with a Hutch SIM card. This ensures that the calls are made at the lowest possible rate.

“You can make a three-minute local call from an illegal connection for Rs 1.50. The PCOs with licence have to charge almost double the amount,” says Mohammad Ibrahim. Unable to keep up with the illegal operators, the septuagenarian has installed a Reliance FWP in his shop.

A Reliance Communications spokesperson said the company was aware that legal PCOs were being affected by the illegal use of FWPs. ‘This is a law and order problem,” he said. The spokesman for another leading service provider, BSNL, said that its vigilance cell was looking into the matter.