By IANS
Shimla : There has been a sharp rise in the theft of telephone cables in the Himachal Pradesh countryside, particularly the rural area of Shimla district.
“Telephone cables worth Rs.450,000 have been stolen in barely two months in Shimla district alone. This has badly disrupted telephone services in the rural areas. I urge the village councils (panchayats) to help the police in nabbing the culprits responsible for these thefts,” said Pradeep Nagpal, general manager Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) Shimla, Saturday evening.
The thefts have taken place only of BSNL cables, which is the sole provider of wired (fixed) landline services in the region.
BSNL has been gradually shifting to WLL (wireless) from landline phones in the countryside as wired phones are prone to thefts and require much more maintenance and manpower as compared to wireless phones.
Private companies are only dealing in mobile and WLL telephone services, which do not have cables.
Hundreds of metres of cables are stolen. Later the cables are melted and copper from it is extracted to be sold in nearby markets.