Mushrooming STD-PCOs fight to survive

VADODARA, Dec 1: In the early 1980's, when the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) began issuing licenses for STD-PCO booths in the cou...

VADODARA, Dec 1: In the early 1980’s, when the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) began issuing licenses for STD-PCO booths in the country, little did it realise that the absence of a provision for restricting the number of booths would make survival in the business an extremely arduous task.

Vadodara now has more than 3100 booths, and operators say there is not much room for more. Half-a-dozen booths in a single shopping complex has become a common sight. While issuing licenses, the DoT does not take this saturation’ into account as there are no norms regarding the distance between booths.

“The absence of this specification is fast rendering this business financially unviable”, said President of the Gujarat STD-PCO operators Association, Yogesh Akolkar, adding that the situation was worsening as DoT continued to issue licences. “The day is not far when we will have begging bowls in our hands,” he commented.

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But the DoT expresses its helplessness to prevent this. “We issue licenses as per the departmental policies. There are no specifications on what should be the distance between two booths,” stated the Deputy General Manager (Planning), Vadodara Telecom District, Mahendrapathi. Mahendrapathi does not believe that issuing licenses to more operators is reducing the profit margins for the existing operators. “There is a growing demand for the STD-PCO booths, and we are issuing licenses on that basis”, he says.

The negative fallout of this policy is that operators are resorting to illegal ways to earn profits. Using pulse rates for STD calls in contravention to the departmental norms (16 Khz), overcharging for local calls and running another business in the same shop housing the booth are the common techniques.

“It is the department which is forcing us to resort to such practices. Had they ensured enough space for the operators to survive none would have been resorting to such practices,” remarked an operator in the city area. He alleged that the DoT, instead of addressing the larger question, are cracking down on them for these violations. “They are punishing us for a crime which has been forced on us,” he said.

The operators are demanding that the DoT should incorporate some norms which restricts the number of booths. “At least there should be a kilometre between booths so that they can get market share,” said an STD-PCO operator in the Fatehgunj area, Rajiv Shah.

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Officials said that the idea behind issuing licenses without restriction was to provide employment opportunities to the unemployed. “The policy basically is to guarantee these unemployed sections some business opportunity. Besides, we give priority to ex-servicemen and the handicapped,” said Mahendrapathi.

Ironically, this very concept of employment has placed the operators on the threshold of unemployment. “When the number used to be less even a small operator used to earn about Rs 6000 per month, but because of the stiff competition his survival in the business is suspect,” said another operator in Gorwa area, Pratik.