Siliguri, Oct. 5 :    Siliguri, Oct. 5:  They wanted to send telegrams. They paid for telegrams, and went home, trusting the post office to deliver their urgent messages urgently. They could not have known that their missives would crawl at the speed of snail mail. BSNL's telegraphic system in north Bengal collapsed one-and-a-half months ago, but its post offices have yet to inform customers that they cannot send telegrams. Instead, they are accepting money from people for the telegrams, and then sending it via ordinary mail. Gautam Chakrabarti, the general manager of the Siliguri telecom circle, admitted that the telegraphic system there was run on the 'obsolete' storage, forward and transmission mode and was beyond repair. 'We are aware that certain inconvenience was being caused to the people who were booking urgent and ordinary telegrams,' Chakrabarti told reporters here today. He admitted that BSNL was nonetheless booking urgent and ordinary telegrams at all the post offices. 'We admit that telegrams are being booked despite the failure of the system and are being sent by ordinary post. Such telegrams are being delayed and delivered after a fortnight at the earliest. We admit that the public has not been made aware of the situation. But certain remedial steps are being taken to solve the problem.' He added: 'We have contacted our counterparts in Calcutta, where they use a wider storage, forward and transmission system. But it is unlikely that the system can be retrieved. We are, however, in consultation with a firm that has suggested an alternative to the system.' The SFT system is a computer-based receiving, storing, forwarding and transmitting system that the department of telecommunications introduced only a decade ago, hailing it to be the most advanced system of telegraphic communication. Chakrabarti said: 'BSNL has plans to introduce e-mail system and open Internet dhabas at all district telegraph offices across the country. In this cyberage, with e-mail as the preferred mode of communication, BSNL has yet to take a policy decision to introduce the cheap and reliable system at all its post and telegraph offices. At present, BSNL runs a limited number of Internet dhabas, mostly in urban areas.'