Rourkela, Dec. 20: A snap in the broadband network of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, caused by alleged lack of co-ordination in road expansion work, has badly affected banking services in the city for the last five days.

"I am in an urgent need to transfer money to my son's account, who lives in Delhi. But, I am unable to do so because of the bank's link failure due to BSNL's technical glitch. Everyday, I am returning from the bank without my purpose being served," said a woman leaving the State Bank of India main branch in the city today. Similar complaints were also heard from the customers of various other banks across the city.

An official of Punjab National Bank's Rourkela branch said: "We have been running without network for the past five days due to BSNL's Internet service failure." State Bank Rourkela's regional manager A. Mahakul said: "We feel sorry for the customers. But, we cannot do anything as the problem lies with BSNL. We took up the issue with senior BSNL officials. They assured us that they would set things right."

BSNL sources said the services were affected due to four-laning work on Sambalpur-Rourkela Road and on the stretch between Barkot and Biramitrapur on NH-143.

Senior BSNL officer U.C. Barik said: "We are trying our best to solve the issue."

Another senior BSNL official put the blame on lack of co-ordination among various agencies. "Earlier, a co-ordination meeting used to take place among BSNL, the private contractor entrusted with the work and the government agency overseeing the four-laning project, where it used to be discussed when the work would be taken up on which stretch. But now, there is hardly any prior information on what the road expansion authorities are going to do. So, how will we get to know when the optical fibre gets disconnected while digging the roads and the services get snapped?" said the official.