Mobiles push telegrams into history
Telegrams will become history in India on July 15, when telegraphic machines ticking across the country will be silenced and turned into relics, thanks to the already dwindled patronage for the 160-year-old service.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) spokesperson, Vijaya, confirmed the receipt of a circular on discontinuing the service, which was started in then Madras in 1853 linking Ooty, Chennai and Bangalore.
'We will be closing down the telegram services in the 20 customer service centres and the employees will be redeployed in other departments of the BSNL,' she said.
However, the district secretary of BSNL Employees Union in Telegraph, Sridhar Subramaniam, wondered how the management could make the decision when the Indian Telegraph Act was passed by Parliament.
It was a Constitutional obligation of the government to provide the service and only Parliament could decide on closing it down, he said.
When a similar decision was made to discontinue '197' and trunk call services, the unions protested and the plan was shelved, he said and added: 'Only the private operator who was given the opportunity to run the service could not do it.'
Vijaya said telegraphic services had already lost out to smart phones, SMS, e-mail, social networking sites and chat, which had replaced the one-way communication. Even rural India now relied only on PCOs and cellphones with no dependency on telegrams, she added.
Another BSNL employee said telegram services were available only in India while the rest of the world has discontinued it and it was another reason behind the decision to discontinue the service.
However, the telegram is still recognised in India as a legal document in a court of law. It is still used to make mass representations to governments and others and offices use it to create official records of communication.
News Posted: 13 June, 2013
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