President of the Social and Cultural Group of Vadodara (SCGV) Sailesh Shah -- which is spearheading a campaign against STD-PCO operators in the city who flout norms -- said that the organisations were forced to seek the intervention of Deputy Director General, S B Sahajpal as the DoT officials in Vadodara were indifferent to their demands.

Pooh-poohing DoT claims that the ongoing raids on STD-PCO operators in the city had ensured that operators do not violate norms, Shah claimed that nothing much had changed on the ground, and the operators continue to charge more than the specified amount for local calls.

``The operators have put up DoT notices announcing that the local call charge is Rs 1.26, but that is only for escaping the wrath of the raiding teams. They continue to charge Rs 2 for the calls,'' Shah alleged.

He added that the department had assured the NGO representatives that for future issuance of licenses, the DoT would ensure that the operators compulsorily have Coin Collection Boxes (CCB) but he alleged that the DoT had recently issued licenses without pressing for the CCBs.

In view of this, the organisation was forced to submit a memorandum to the DDG in which they pointed out that despite their repeated representations, the local DoT authorities had been found wanting in their drive against overcharging and other irregularities, said Shah. The NGO also gave him details of the correspondence it had with local authorities in the past three months.

The NGO said a survey conducted recently revealed that about 70 per cent local calls last for two minutes; 20 per cent for three minutes and the rest for more than three minutes. They demanded that the charge be revised to Re one.

Its demands included more counters for bill collection, steps for sending bills to consumers in time, deep-laying of cables to avoid frequent damages, and allocation of new STD/PCOs only after spot inquiry.