HYDERABAD, Aug 29: Hyderabad Public Call Office Holders Association on Friday urged the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to ensure uniformity in tariffs, saying that difference in call rates for PCOs and customer service centres, set up by various companies, was likely to create an untoward situation.

Speaking at a news conference at the local press club here on Friday, office-bearers of the association, threatened to launch a protest campaign if problems of the PCO operators were not resolved, resulting in shutting down their PCOs.

They said that thousands of PCOs had been established all over the country, including Hyderabad for which PCO operators had made an advance payment amounting between Rs25,000 and Rs40,000 against each telephone set operated by them.

They said that there were 4,000 PCOs in Hyderabad alone, adding that cumulatively, PCO operators had deposited a total amount of over Rs80 million with the companies that was only 50 per cent refundable.

Complaining against phone companies’ move to set up customer service centres all over the city, offering telephone calls at reduced rates, they said that it had greatly affected the business of the PCO operators.

Office-bearers if the association said that these companies were taking an amount between Rs100,000 and Rs150,000 as an advance against each centre, which was unrefundable.

Criticizing the 70-paisa per unit difference between the rates of the PCOs and customer service centres, they said that the situation had created misgivings in the minds of the people running PCOs.

Urging the Pakistan Telecommunication Authorities to intervene to settle the issue, saying that otherwise PCO operators would be left with no option but to launch a protest movement and close down their PCOs.

SNF: There will be no water available downstream Guddu Barrage if more dams are built, says Chairman of the Sindh National Front Mumtaz Ali Bhutto.

He was speaking to a gathering of his party workers here at the local circuit house here.

Expressing resentment over the president’s statements on the water issue, Mumtaz Bhutto said that instead of sympathising with the rain-affected people of Sindh, he had rubbed salt into their wounds.

Mumtaz Bhutto said that only assurances regarding monitoring of water distribution were insufficient to satisfy the people of Sindh as the province’s water share had continuously been usurped during the three-and-a-half years of the military rule.

He said that the controversial water projects should have been buried forever after their rejection by three provincial assemblies.