Ranchi, Aug. 9: The long wait for a BSNL pre-paid connection will soon be over. The Jharkhand circle of the public sector utility has decided to invite 40,000 pre-paid subscribers on board.
Having already installed a new Ericsson mobile exchange in Ranchi, which is in the fine tuning stage, the BSNL authorities plan to distribute the new SIM cards within a fortnight of completion of the registration process all over Jharkhand.
The capital, where registration will begin on August 16, will alone get 15,000 new connections followed by Jamshedpur, which has already attracted over 50,000 applicants.
The applicants will have to deposit Rs 500, which includes the cost of the SIM card and talk time worth Rs 300, he added.
Deputy general manager (finance), Ranchi Telecom, Niranjan Kumar, said the registration process will start in seven centres in Ranchi, and centres in Gumla, Lohardaga, Simdega, Khunti and Mandar.
“The registration process has started in view of the great demand for the SIM cards. There will be an ongoing exercise to create a waiting list so that customers are issued new SIM cards on a first-come first-serve basis. After the queues start thinning at the 12 centres, we will register new applicants only at the Telephone Bhavan in Ranchi,” he said.
Rai said besides issuing new SIM cards, the BSNL is also improving its services by building new towers at strategic locations at Panchavati Plaza, Morhabadi, GEL Church Complex, Shayamali Colony and Namkum. All these new sites will be ready by the time the new SIM cards are distributed, he said.
Launched in March 2002, BSNL mobile became an instant hit after it was converted from C-DOT exchange to Ericsson in April 2003. The BSNL SIM cards have always been in short supply since then. Of the around one lakh subscribers in Jharkhand, Ranchi alone has about 21,000 subscribers while Jamshedpur accounts for 15,000.
Dhanbad and Bokaro have 13,000, customers each, there are 10,000 subscribers in Dumka, and Deoghar. Hazaribagh, Koderma, Tilaiya are important centres with a customer base of 15,000.
