PESHAWAR, March 11: Disconnection of telephone lines has cut off South Waziristan Agency from the rest of the country and the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited is unable to restore its network in the region.

An official told Dawn that the company had suffered Rs150 million losses after some people took away equipment including repeater and 55 solar modules from Sherwangi and Utmakhel stations, disrupting telecommunication network in the entire agency.

The company has four main exchanges in the area.

Officials said that over 4,000 consumers had been suffering in the agency since two main telephone exchanges were robbed.

The area has been cut off for one month and people were now coming to Tank and Frontier Region Jandola for telephone calls.

PTCL officials said that Sherwangi — the main telephone exchange — was not functioning because equipment including repeater, antenna, 40 solar modules and batteries had been taken away.

They said that in many areas telephone cables had been stolen and 17 solar modules had been stolen from the Utmankhel exchange.

Sources said that the company had asked the political administration to provide security and to guarantee the safety of installations in the area, but the authorities concerned did not make any firm commitment in this regard.

“The PTCL will not restore telecommunication network in South Waziristan, unless the administration ensures full security of the staff and installations,” said an official of the company at Dera Ismail Khan regional office.

He said that PTCL employees could not travel to the agency due to prevailing lawlessness and miscreants had snatched the company’s vehicles. He said that disruption of the telephone network had also affected revenue of the company.