J A M M U   &   K A S H M I R

40,000 new phone connections for J&K
JAMMU, Jan 2 — The government has decided to provide 40,000 new telephone connections in Jammu and Kashmir during current financial year, a senior Telecom official has said. A total of 28,000 lines of equipped capacity have been added and a total of 10,800 new telephone connections have been provided so far, the Chief General Manager, Telecommunication Jammu and Kashmir circle, Mr Ramesh Lalwani, said here yesterday.

Staff shortage leads to closure of border police posts
JAMMU, Jan 2 — More than six border police posts have been temporarily closed following a shortage of personnel. In certain areas new structures had been built to house the police posts but these have been locked after it was found that more men were required at various vital police stations.

40,000 new phone connections for J & K

JAMMU, Jan 2 (PTI) — The government has decided to provide 40,000 new telephone connections in Jammu and Kashmir during current financial year, a senior Telecom official has said.

A total of 28,000 lines of equipped capacity have been added and a total of 10,800 new telephone connections have been provided so far, the Chief General Manager, Telecommunication Jammu and Kashmir circle, Mr Ramesh Lalwani, said here yesterday.

Telephone on demand is now available at Rajouri and Doda where registration charges have been reduced to Rs 1,000, he said, adding that "We are also reducing registration charges in 18 small exchanges with effect from January 10 after getting necessary clearance from the TRAI".

Mr Lalwani said special thrust had been given for remote areas for provision of reliable STD links and satellite communication had extensively been planned to provide the facility in remote areas.

The total number of exchanges in the state is now 267 and new C-DoT exchanges are being installed at Leh, Anantnag and Baramula and are expected to be commissioned by March 2000, he said.

Referring to the Internet, he said the number of assess channels had been increased from 32 to 96 and 1,150 subscribers have been provided with Internet connections.

ISDN facility, which enables a subscriber to use computer, fax and telephone on the same line had been introduced in Jammu and Srinagar from November 1998, the Telecom official said.

Collect phone service, in which the called party makes the payment, has been launched in Jammu and the facility will shortly be extended to Srinagar, he added.

Staff shortage leads to closure of border
police posts
Tribune News Service

JAMMU, Jan 2 — More than six border police posts have been temporarily closed following a shortage of personnel. In certain areas new structures had been built to house the police posts but these have been locked after it was found that more men were required at various vital police stations.

Sources said these posts would be re-established once the state was able to raise two more police battalions. In the meantime the plan of establishing 100 additional border police posts has been shelved. These posts were being set up to provide what is called a second line of defence to troops guarding the international border.

The police authorities had come to the conclusion that once these border police posts were functional they could check infiltrators who had given a slip to troops. The experiment had succeeded during the past six months as several infiltrators were either eliminated or arrested on this side of the 187-km long international border.

Meanwhile, instructions have been issued to fortify all police stations and posts.