Nizamabad: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited officials slapped penalty of Rs 78 lakh on Mission Bhagiratha works in Nizamabad district for destroying Optic Fibre Cables. Damaged cables in Balkonda, Armoor, and Velpur mandals that left hundreds of landline telephones dead.
Reportedly, telephone exchanges turned defunct and BSNL incurred heavy loss for last few days in the district. Customers have been facing lot of inconvenience due to lack of phone facility and Internet connectivity. Negligence of a few engineers and contractors led to the problem.
“Contractors should inform us while taking up works on the OFC route and in presence of BSNL officials the works should commence,” said a senior official from BSNL-maintenance wing said. “For their own convenience, water grid officials took up pipeline work at midnight and carelessly dup up our cables,” he said. Replying to a question, he said that the water grid officials ignored their repeated requests on cable damage.
BSNL authorities slapped the fine on water grid works in Balkonda Assembly constituency, which is represented by Mission Bhagiratha vice-chairman V. Prashanth Reddy. His followers were shocked over the penalty and are trying to get an exemption.
Meanwhile, contractors have begun repairs to the damaged OFC network.
When contacted by this corresponent, water grid Armoor division executive engineer Ramesh said that damaged cables would be repaired immediately. “We have not received any penalty notices,” he said.
