New telephone exchange awaits formal inauguration in Ctg

The new exchange installed by a Korean company with seven-digit number is ready for connections.

The exchange was scheduled to be inaugurated by T&T Minister Barrister Aminul Haq on October 25 but now it has been deferred as the prime minister is now likely to inaugurate it.

Telegraph and Telephone Board (T&T) sources said the inauguration would probably be held after the Eid-ul-Fitr.

A top city BNP leader said inauguration of the much-waited new telephones in Chittagong is being delayed as the BNP plans to make a showdown in the port city as a mark of massive development during the last four years.

General Manager of T&T Chittagong region Engineer Saleh Ahmed Hakim visited the new exchange at Nandankanon in the city on October 12.

With existing 80,000, the total T&T subscribers in Chittagong city will rise to 163,256.

T&T officials hope that the connections of new telephone lines, including 3,000 in Hathajari and Selimpur of Sitakunda upazila each, will significantly help meet the increasing demand of telephones.

Korean Telecom Company had started installation works of the exchange in the middle of 2004 and completed it in September this year. It has already put the exchange in operation on experimental basis after having been tested by the local engineers.

Despite a plan undertaken by the T&T authorities to give connections to the waiting subscribers by installing some new cables on priority basis, a number of subscribers under different exchanges are waiting connection for years on the pretext of scarcity of new cables.

T&T officials however asserted that the existing 80,000 telephone lines will soon be converted into caller ID with seven-digit and formalities have already been completed to this effect.