The city of Chandigarh is the latest victim of poor telephone connectivity. Not for the first time, cable thieves are to blame.

The general manager of Chandigarh for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Naresh Sharma, says that thieves and anti-social elements have been at work recently and have stolen cables from manholes and bridges. The thieves normally cut the cables when these are exposed during construction activities such as road widening.

As a result, telecom services have been affected in some parts as repair work takes five to seven days. Sharma lamented the fact that about 800 telephones have gone dead as a result of this single incident as the copper cables were stolen. The problem primarily affects subscribers in Chandigarh, Panchkula in Haryana and Mohali in Punjab.

Cable thefts have been hitting BSNL’s operations across India over a long period, and BSNL could do with some security mechanism.  BSNL also needs to investigate internally. X