india

Updated: Sep 02, 2019 08:33 IST

Waseem Ahmad’s family ran a public call office (PCO) in Srinagar’s Dal Gate until the early noughties before the proliferation of mobile phones, cheap call rates, and internet forced them to shut it and start a travel agency.

They have restarted the PCO over a decade later after authorities eased the communication blockade imposed following the Centre’s move on August 5 to divide Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories and abrogate the constitutional provision that prevented outsiders from buying property in the region.

“Although the booth was closed but we were using a fixed-line [telephone] for bookings as well as for broadband internet to run our travel agency. A few days back when the fixed lines started functioning again, we opened it [PCO] again for people desperate to call their loved ones,” Ahmad said.

He said the fixed line is not working properly and remains out of order for hours. “However, people keep coming again and again,” he said.

Jammu and Kashmir was put under lockdown and mobiles, landlines and internet services were blocked and hundreds of people, including former chief ministers, were put under detention after the Centre revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.

Fixed-line phones were made functional in parts of the state since August 17, prompting many to reopen their PCOs.

“My son is pursuing civil engineering in Lucknow… I was able to talk to him after 15 days. I was so restless all these days. Before phones were shut, I would call him on his mobile phone twice a day,” said Atiqa Bano, a 45-year-old homemaker after speaking to her son from a PCO in Srinagar’s Barbarshah.

Ali Mohammad, who started a departmental store in 2004 after closing his PCO, said he reopened it after his fixed-line was restored and he found attendants at Srinagar’s Lal Ded hospital near his store desperate to make phone calls.

“Many people came knocking particularly those accompanying patients from the nearby maternity hospital [Lal Ded]. How could I say no?” asked Mohammad.

Officials said people have begun to apply for new telephone connections, but the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has only started restoring the existing ones for now.

Ahmad said they were flooded with requests from people to start international calling facilities. “I had gone to the BSNL office but they have increased a lot of formalities for the service,” he said.

People were offered telephone calling facilities at police stations and offices of district commissioners before the fixed-lines were partly restored. Incoming mobile call facility were also restored in parts of north Kashmir’s Kupwara district last week.