Looting of BSNL's wealth still continue without intervention

CHENNAI: Chennai circle of BSNL is facing an acute problem as the telecom giant is finding it diffcult to protect the underground cable, often looted for its high value copper. Though BSNL, through its vigilance department has intensified the surveillance and departmental action is taken against insiders for thier failure to protect the cables, the looting of cables go unchecked in capital Chennai.

The latest case was related to the flip flop by BSNL officials where the BSNL initially preferred a complaint but later insisted that the police do not take further action.

On February 16, a Junior engineer from Periyar nagar BSNL exchange lodged a complaint in Kolathur V4 Rajamangalam police station. In that complaint, he mentioned that an underground cable of BSNL was damaged due to over bridge work near Avvai Nagar - KK Nagar junction.

He added, the damaged cable was replaced with a new one and we left the remaining cable in the bridge work security personnel's room with their permission.

But, the remaining cable worth Rs 17,500 was found missing the next day, read the complaint filed by junior engineer.

On the same day, the complainant JE, withdrew his complaint citing the missing cable was found from a bush nearby the site. However this had created trouble for the junior engineer as the vigilance department which became suspicious launched an internal investigation and suspended the engineer for three months.

However, the move irked activists and whistle blowers. "If a cable was lost, the local sub division engineer (SDE) should have lodged the complaint and not the local JE. Further,

there are unconfirmed reports that the cable theft is a handwork of BSNL insiders," alleged V Sathiabalan, former telecom advisory member.

The BSNL vigilance officer had investigated and suspended the engineer for three months, but what we need is a police investigation as this is a theft case. And investigation by the police will bring more truth, Sathiabalan contended.

When we contacted a senior official from BSNL confirmed the cable theft incident and said department investigation was on. The official also refuse to divulge further details stating that the investigation was still on. There are such stray cases, but by and large every action is taken to protect the existing BSNL insfrastructure, the BSNL official added.