KARACHI, Feb 24: A large number of telephone bills meant for the subscribers of Bhittai Colony Korangi, Hyderi Goth, etc for the month of January 2006 rather than reaching their destinations have found their way to a local food outlet in the area.
These telephone bills correspond to the telephone exchange 046 — ALCT — Korangi — III DG, 910 ALCT — Ibrahim Hydery 01; etc and have been issued on Feb 10 and the due date for payment was Feb 24.
According to the sources, a bill distributor came to a kabab vendor at the main bus stop of the Bhittai Colony a few days back and after eating at the place, instead of paying the vendor he gave him a bunch of the undistributed phone bills — achieving two tasks at one go — having a free meal and saving himself of the trouble of home-to-home distribution of the bills.
The vendor took the bills as he needs a large number of papers on a regular basis to wrap the kababs while giving away to the customers. The vendor, who still had a thick bunch of phone bills with him, gave around 67 telephone bills to the Dawn on Friday evening so that the news could be printed and the culprit could be taken to task.
He told Dawn that he had used a number of those bills to wrap the kababs in the past few days, though he could not remember the exact number.
Responding to Dawn’s queries the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd’s (PTCL) Revenue Director concerned, Mohammad Ismail, said that the bills in Bhittai Colony, Korangi were distributed through a courier company, Varied Human Resources, hired in January. The company is paid Rs4 per bill and has to distribute 60,000 bills, he informed.
Mr Ismail said that he had received some complaints of not receiving the bills or dumping of the bills at general stores etc and had visited the Bhittai Colony and Korangi etc areas. He had contacted the distributing company and warned it verbally and in a day or two notices would also be issued to it.
A penalty of Rs20 per bill will be imposed on the courier company for each undistributed bill. Besides the late or the non-payment surcharge on the bill will also be recovered from the company and credited to the phone subscriber.
Telephone connection is not disconnected on non-payment for the first month; it is disconnected if next month’s bill is also not paid, he added saying that usually a subscriber gets 80 to 85 days before his phone is finally disconnected.
He said that the courier company was directed that if it could not deliver the bills, these should not be dumped and should be returned to the PTCL so that these could be distributed through some other means.
Mr Ismail said that people who did not get bills usually get the duplicates from the PTCL’s Customer Service Centres or they did not pay for the month.
