KARACHI: Edhi asks mobile phone firms to make 115 toll-free
By Bahzad Alam Khan
KARACHI, Nov 29: The Edhi Foundation has asked all the mobile phone companies in the country to make their emergency number 115 toll-free so that people in distress could call the social welfare organization freely.
Similarly, the police department is also considering asking the mobile phone companies to make their emergency number 15 toll-free.
Documents obtained by Dawn show that the Edhi Foundation has written to the mobile phone companies urging them to follow in the footsteps of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company which has already declared the Edhi emergency number toll-free.
A letter written by a spokesman for the Edhi Foundation to the manager of Mobilink says: “The use of mobile phones in the country has increased so much that there is always a mobile phone holder at the site of an accident or emergency. If the emergency number 115 was toll-free, people would freely call the Edhi Foundation and by reaching there in time Edhi ambulances can save the lives of people.”
Letters written to other mobile companies by the Edhi Foundation have the same drift. At the Edhi Foundation’s centre at Tower, the West Wharf telephone exchange had given 20 lines to 115.
Edhi Foundation officials and police officials point out that quite often people having mobile phones with prepaid cards fail to call the Edhi Foundation and police because they have exhausted their cards’ limit. If these numbers were toll-free, people would be able to make calls to the Edhi Foundation and police.
PTCL: The PTCL continues to keep mum about the fact that most of its service numbers are not toll-free.
The PTCL does not advertise the fact, and conveniently omits to mention in its bills that callers are charged whenever they make calls to the large number of PTCL service numbers.
Every service number has a specific job - 14 for time, 15 for police help, 118 for centralized power complaints, 119 for complaints pertaining to the Sui Southern Gas Company, 114 for flight inquiry, 117 for railway inquiry, 106 for telephone complaints, 134 for army-monitored utilities’ complaints, 112 enables a subscriber to hear the ring of his telephone set, etc.
Most subscribers use these numbers under the impression that they are toll-free. The PTCL keeps its more than 800,000 subscribers in the dark about the fact that only those service numbers are toll-free which have something to do with the PTCL - 17 (inquiry number), 18 (complaint number) 102 (overseas call booking number) and 109 (trunk call booking number).
Insiders told Dawn that every summer when the transmission and distribution system of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation breaks down and the number of power failures increases, people frequently call 118 to lodge complaints. In this way, the PTCL earns a considerable amount of money from such helpline numbers.
By the same token, in the event of a calamity, such as a cyclone, the PTCL earns a lot of revenue from 135 which the administration monitors for the registration of people’s problems.
An official of the PTCL told Dawn that one reason behind inflated phone bills was that subscribers used the service numbers far too liberally. He added that many times when subscribers received an itemized bill - a bill with a list of calls made - on request, they were surprised to learn that they had run up a huge phone bill by making service calls.
