Cells may go silent during polls

NEW DELHI: Next time your cellphone goes blank, blame the district administration. It’s possible that telecom towers went into silent mode because your municipal corporation was going to polls or the staff selection board was conducting recruitment exams somewhere nearby.

Bizarre as it may seem, district administrations are increasingly asking cellphone service providers to suspend operations when events like polls or exams take place, purportedly to check cellphone-related malpractice. Cell companies allege that district magistrates (DMs) seem to be happy checking the symptoms rather than curing the disease.

Sample this: A letter by superintendent of police, Karnal (Haryana), dated October 28, ’06, asked cell companies to suspend services from 9.45 am to 12 pm, during which a staff selection commission exam was to take place. The reason, according to the SP’s letter, “Aspirants for state taxation inspectors were using their mobile phones for leaking question paper and for mass copying.” In Uttar Pradesh, the DM wanted cell towers to be switched off from 8 am to 5 pm on October 28 in Saharanpur and on November 3 in Mainpuri, “to facilitate peaceful, unbiased and independent conduct of nagar palika polls.” The Meerut DM wanted mobile services to be closed 8 am to 5 pm to ‘prevent spreading of rumours’ during the election of chairman and councillors. Copies of all these three communiques are available with ET.

TV Ramachandran, director-general, COAI, the body representing all GSM operators, told ET, “The orders passed by the state authorities to meet their limited objectives shows how lax they are about the impact such directives can have on the public at large.”

Terming these orders as ‘unreasonable and incorrect’, another operator added, “The authorities not only disregard public opinion, but also expect cellular operators to do their job for them, which is to control ‘cheating and rigging’.”

ET has learnt that some operators have also asked the department of telecommunications to clarify if state authorities had the jurisdiction to issue ‘such blanket orders which penalise the public, so as to control the actions of a limited number of people’. They also wanted DoT to specify as to “who would be responsible for losses or hardship suffered by consumers on account of such arbitrary actions by state authorities.”

Sure, operators want this trend to be nipped in the bud. “Else, many other state authorities will resort to such practices in future,” said an operator.