In December, the BSNL deputy general manager wrote the general manager (finance) urging him to sanction a rent rebate to all customers whose telephones had been dead for more than three days.

In July 2008, Sajag Nagrik Manch president Vivek Velankar had sought to know — under the Right to Information (RTI) Act — about the telephone connections in the city that became non-functional for more than 15 days at a stretch in the period between April 2007 and July 2008.

The BSNL replied in August that the number of bulk cable faults was 14,430, while other cases included 10,000 connections — in other words, 24,430 telephones suffered on and off.

“The delay in clearing complaints or faults in general was due to cable faults, cable damages, cable thefts and cable cuts in road-widening work of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).

Besides, to attend to the faults, the PMC’s permission is required for digging the road; further, labour is also involved for digging and joining disconnected cables,” BSNL replied to Velankar.

The BSNL had paid a rent rebate of Rs 2.25 lakh to 1,720 customers who approached the utility, against the total of 24,430.

“Telephones remaining dead for weeks is a nightmare for consumers, psychologically as well as financially. And then the telephone company charges full rent for the month despite the phone remaining dead. This, despite the company’s own rules that stipulate giving rent rebate to consumers whose phone has been dead for over 15 days,” Velankar said.

In September, Velankar wrote to BSNL to first hand over the “rent rebate” to the remaining 22,700 customers by passing it on in the next telephone bill.

He had also demanded that the company should henceforth make sure that the “rent rebate” is passed on to consumers automatically, without being asked for.