M A I N   N E W S

Cordect telephone service withdrawn
Varinder Singh & Ashok Kaura

Phagwara, October 25
Following objections by the defence authorities in the light of the disturbed conditions in Jammu and Kashmir and the ongoing Afghanistan crisis, Connect, a venture of HFCL Infotel Limited has withdrawn its limited wireless cordect phone service from a few Punjab cities, causing inconvenience to hundreds of subscribers.

Connect was the first company in the region to come out with this service wherein wireless telephones with independent antennae were provided to people in congested areas of cities like Hoshiarpur, Phagwara, Khanna and SAS Nagar where it was difficult for the company to lay normal telephone cables.

However, the Army authorities objected to the operations of the company, saying that it had been clashing with the frequencies used by the Army for its own network in parts of Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala. Subsequently, the 1880-1900 frequency used by the company was frozen by the Government of India. This led the company to suspend its operations with regard to the cordect phone service on October 22. Subscribers of Phagwara and Hoshiarpur suddenly found their phones going out of order.

Everything was normal with the limited mobility service and the normal land set service of the company, a company official said.

The army authorities thought there was a possibility of information leaking through the use of cordect phones. Mr Vinay Bhan, a regional manager of the company, admitted that the company had withdrawn the service in view of security considerations. 

Power tariff hike on cards
S.P. Sharma
Tribune News Service

Shimla, October 25
A hike in power tariff is expected to be announced on Monday when the Himachal Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (HPERC) is scheduled to announce its order on the petition of the HPSEB seeking a substantial increase in electricity rates.

It is learnt that the chairman of the HPERC, Mr S.S. Gupta, was giving final touches to his order on the petition of the HPSEB which was filed on April 30.

When contacted, Mr Gupta refused to say whether the commission was allowing a hike in power tariff or not. He said as many as 32 objections were filed against the hike by various organisations and individuals. The commission itself visited different places in the state to hear the objections of the parties.

Some of the parties objecting to the petition of the HPSEB had submitted tariffs of certain foreign countries to claim that the stand of the HPSEB was unjustified.

The electricity tariff has been hiked twice during the past three years. Besides, domestic consumers were for the first time burdened with a substantial surcharge during winter.

The HPSEB has sought an increase in the domestic power supply from 28 per cent to 114 per cent in three different slabs of consumption. The petition has sought that the tariff for the consumers in the slab of over 300 units per month should be allowed to be billed at the rate of Rs 2.90 per unit from the existing Rs 2.25 per unit. The small consumers consuming up to 45 units per month who are being charged 70 paise per unit at present were proposed to be charged Rs 1.25 per unit.