KARACHI, Feb 16: The number of subscribers taking advantage of a telephone service offered by the Pakistan Telecommunication Company under which Muharram Majalis are relayed from Imambargahs to houses has dwindled over the years.

The divisional engineer in charge of the relay service, Syed Waseem-ul-Hasan Abidi, told Dawn on Wednesday that around 250 subscribers were currently using the service on payment of a nominal fee. He recalled that more than 800 subscribers took advantage of the service in the past.

Every Muharram the PTCL liaises with the Majalis-i-Aaza Telephonic Relay Organization (Metro) to telecast Majalis from at least five Imambargahs to subscribers.

Majalis from Sajadia Imambargah in North Nazimabad, Khaliqdina Hall on M.A. Jinnah Road, Bara Imambargah in Kharadar, Hussainian Iranian in Kharadar and Shuhda-i-Karbala Imambargah at Punjabi Club are relayed to subscribers from 7am to 1am every day. Majlis from Nishtar Park Imambargah is relayed to Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Sahiwal.

Mr Abidi said that since Majalis from leading Imambargahs were also available on the Internet, a large number of subscribers no longer applied for the telephone service for which they had to pay a certain sum. He explained that the Majalis were relayed to subscribers' houses only when they obtained a No-Objection Certificate from their town police officer (TPO).

"The TPO ensures that the applicant does not connect the telephone service to a public address system in his locality. The PTCL charges Rs220 for 10 days of Muharram, Rs268 for 30 days and Rs448 for 68 days," he said.

A PTCL subscriber, Syed Fasih Haider Kazmi, called Dawn from Azizabad to say that the Majalis relay service offered by the PTCL was of extremely poor quality this Muharram. He added that many complaints lodged by him with the PTCL officials concerned went unheard.

"There is a lot of distortion and noise in the Majalis relayed to my place. I suspect that some PTCL officials distort the signals on purpose," he alleged. But Mr Abidi said that those PTCL subscribers who did not install a 600-ohm impedance pad experienced noise and distortion in the telephone service. He ruled out intentional distortion of signals by PTCL officials.