BSNL announces slew of services

Shillong, Mar 1: The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, NE-1 Telecom Circle, today announced a slew of services for the benefit of customers of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura.

Speaking to reporters here, Chief General Manager of BSNL, NE-1 Circle, A.K. Gupta, said that BSNL customers would henceforth be covered under a ''Personal Accidental Insurance Cover of Rs 50,000 for Landline/WLL/Postpaid Mobile customers for which BSNL will be paying a premium. The claim settlement, to be done by Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company Ltd., will cover accidental death and permanent total disability due to accident.

He said the BSNL is also launching a scheme of booking new landline connections with very low investment which is valid up to March 31. Under this scheme, registration charges have been reduced to Rs.100 from Rs.500 and the installation charges of Rs.500 waived off. For pre-paid mobile customers, BSNL has announced 'reduced local call' rates with all own network local calls to be 60 paisa per minute instead of 90 paisa per minute.

Similarly, he said, all local calls to other networks will be 90 paisa per minute, instead of Rs.1.20 per minute. To have this facility, the customer needs to have a minimum balance of Rs.500.

There is also a new broadband offer valid from March 1 to 31, under which a new landline will be given rent free against a new broadband connection to customers who already have a landline in their name. One general pre-paid SIM Card with Rs.30 talk time and 7 days' validity on new landline connection can be offered free of cost, which will be launched in the first week of March 2008, he informed Mr Gupta said the BSNL is also starting a special Cellular Bill Pay System to enable postpaid mobile customers to use pre-paid vouchers to pay their monthly bills by dialing a toll free IVR number.

The customers, to include landline ones too in future, can make their payments anytime from anywhere. The advantages of this scheme are that there is no need to make payments in any BSNL counter or any outlet by standing in queues and no need to carry cash for bill payments.

The future plans of BSNL includes distribution of products such as Cell One Bill pay vouchers, landline vouchers, prepaid top-up PINS, railways tickets, content downloads, electricity bills etc.

UNI