​On Passport Seva Diwas, regional office struggling to restore communication services failure

Piyush.Rai@timesgroup.com

Bareilly: Even as the ministry of external affairs celebrated Passport Seva Diwas across the nation on Friday, ironically, the regional passport office in the city has been struggling to get back on its feet after the failure of communication services for over a fortnight.

In the last week of May, the underground communication cables were damaged during digging of road. Essential services of telephone, internet and fax were completely suspended from May 31 to June 20.

Speaking to TOI, assistant passport officer (APO), Naveen Chandra Bisht, said, “The telephone, internet and fax services were partially restored on June 20 after repetitive reminder to the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited.”

“With all communication lines shut, we were not able to access or attend to any queries, grievances or updates of passport applicants. Our social media handles were also not accessible which made us unreachable to the outside world,” he said.

The passport Sewa Kendra at the Pilibhit bypass road, which integrates with the state police for physical verification of applicant’s credentials, and with India Post for delivery of passports, was bearing the brunt of the communication services failure at the regional office.

On the condition of anonymity, a top official said that verification process was severely hampered and many applications were indefinitely delayed due to unavailability of internet service at the regional office.

“We tried calling the local sub divisional officer (SDO) at BSNL but even after numerous calls from our side, he did not respond,” said the official.

TOI also tried reaching Vivek Saxena, regional SDO, but he neither responded to calls nor was it possible to reach him in his office.

“It was only after the intervention of higher officials of BSNL that the restoration work was expedited but still the services are partially restored.” APO Bisht said.

Atul Mishra, deputy general manager BSNL blamed it on the municipal corporation and two of the telephone exchanges in the region, which were temporarily out of order.

“The municipal corporation went ahead with the widening of road without properly notifying, causing damage to the underground cables. Further, two of our exchanges went out of order due to lightening. All these factors forced the undue delay in the restoration of services.” he said.


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