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Paswan's home state worst hit by telecom stir

Our Correspondent in Patna

The telecom strike was unofficially extended for six days in Union Communication Minister Ram Vilas Paswan's home state of Bihar, even though the three-day strike has officially been called off, following a settlement between various unions and the government.

Normal functioning at the residence and office of the chief minister and her cabinet colleagues at Raj Bhavan, the secretariat, railways, airport, hospitals and newspapers were badly hit due to the strike.

Telecom employees abandoned work on September 4, instead of September 6, as in the rest of the country.

The state was completely cut off from the outside world for four days as some employees damaged some equipment. Had the strike continued for a few more days, there was a threat that the main telephone exchange of Patna would collapse as the employees disconnected power supply, thus cutting off the air-conditioning.

Though chief general manager R K Bhatia said efforts were continuing on a war-footing to restore normalcy, departmental officials conceded that it may take at least a fortnight for normalcy in far-flung areas of the state.

The department had incurred an estimated loss of Rs 50 million during the strike.

Multi-edition newspapers had to drop editorial and business pages and fill sports pages with photos and features. Even electronic mediapersons found it extremely difficult to send across news.

There are six lakh subscribers in the state's 950 telephone exchanges. Senior officials have been deputed to monitor the 20 secondary switching areas all over the state.

An employee denied that the impact was more severe because Bihar was the minister's home state.

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