Despite govt orders, pvt telecom companies fail to restore SMS

Tribune News Service
Srinagar, January 2

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Private telecom companies continue to defy the government directive over resumption of Short Messaging Service (SMS), as thousands of mobile phone subscribers in Kashmir, despite paying for the service, were unable to avail themselves of it on Thursday.

Telecom operators — Reliance Jio and Airtel— have not restored the SMS, drawing sharp criticism from public over the government’s inability to act against the private telecom companies. Only the government-owned BSNL has restored the SMS from Wednesday.

“We have been paying for the SMS, Internet and call services even after phone connectivity was blocked on August 5. Now, when the government has ordered the telecom operators to resume SMS, they are unmoved,” said Shabir Hussain of the Nowhatta locality in Srinagar.

The government ordered the restoration of SMS from Wednesday, after phone connectivity and Internet services were blocked on August 5 in wake of abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of J&K into two Union Territories — Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

Mobile phones in Kashmir buzzed after a gap of 72 days on October 14, but SMS facilities were stopped within a few hours.

The Kashmir valley has 66 lakh mobile phone subscribers — 40 lakh post-paid and 26 lakh prepaid mobile phone users.

Official spokespersons for private telecom companies refused to comment on the issue.

However, some of their officials on said they would not be able to run the service in light of fresh government guidelines. “The government has issued several guidelines like barring us from running bulk message service which has made it difficult for us to resume the SMS,” they said, without elaborating the guidelines.

Government spokesperson Rohit Kansal expressed anger over the inability of private companies to restore SMS. “When BSNL could restore the SMS why not the other companies? We have ordered them to restore the services,” Kansal said.

He said the government had not sought any report from the private companies over the non-restoration of SMS.

Net restored in 80 hospitals

For improving patient care in hospitals, the government on Thursday restored Internet in 80 health institutions across Kashmir.

“To provide connectivity to important institutions related to the Health Department and facilitate their smooth communication operations, high-speed broadband connections have been restored to 80 government hospitals,” said an official spokesperson.

Directorate, Health Services, Kashmir (DHSK), said broadband services have been restored in government-run hospitals. “However, health institutions having not cleared their bills or having some local issue are in the process of getting the broadband restored immediately,” reads the statement of the DHSK.