Jammu, August 18
A large number of persons seeking application forms for mobile telephone connections turned up at the seven centres of the BSNL here this morning even before the office of the BSNL opened. The police had to resort to a mild lathi charge to restore order at the main centre.

Long queues of application form seekers were seen at all the centres and many of them returned disappointed as about 20,000 forms were issued within about three hours after the office opened at 10 am.

The authorities had got 26,000 forms printed each for Jammu and Srinagar, where 13,000 connections each were proposed to be released in the first phase.

The people of the state had been waiting for a long time for the launch of the mobile service, which had been held up because of certain objections by the Defence Ministry. Mostly youngsters gathered at the BSNL centres and girls had to struggle to reach the counter.

The customer care centre at Rani Talab exhausted its quota of 5000 forms within two hours. Those waiting for the forms at Gandhi Nagar and other centres had to purchase photostat copies of application slips for the forms from a nearby shop for Re 1 each as the telephone exchange had exhausted the slips.

Srinagar: There was a mad rush of mobile phone form seekers at the Central Telegraph Office here on Monday. Persons from different sections of society, including businessmen, particularly those associated with tourisms students and government employees, heaved a sigh of relief following the announcement to issue applications forms by the Chief General Manager Jammu and Kashmir Circle.

Police and security personnel had a tough time in controlling the rush. There were long queues in front of the main telephone exchange, which led to traffic jams.