KARACHI, Dec 2: A large number of Pakistan Telecommunication Company subscribers face troubles getting their phone numbers reconnected even after payment of bills.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Monday that every month the phone utility disconnected the numbers of those subscribers who owed more than a month’s bill to the PTCL. ”Ideally these numbers should be reconnected as soon as the bills are paid. But this does not happen largely because of technical lapses. Besides, a lack of coordination between the revenue department and the computer department causes delay,” they explained.

They added that the New Automatic Disconnection and Restoration programme, a computer software, played up quite often but the PTCL failed to rectify it on time, thus inconveniencing all those subscribers who had paid their bills but their phone connections were not restored.

A PTCL letter, issued on Monday, explains what causes delay when the so-called Automatic Disconnection and Restoration programme breaks down. The letter, written by the senior revenue officer (general) of the Southern Telecom Region-II to the managing director of the computer research department, says: “In continuation of this office letter of even number dated 30-11-2002, it is to inform you that none of your staff attended this office on 01-12-2002 as promised by you on 30-11-2002 in connection with the restoration and disconnection of group I and II resulting non-restoration of telephones.

“Today on 02-12-2002 till 9am 710 telephones were lying pending for want of restoration.

“The present prevailing situation has spread panic and frustration among the affected customers and the customers are much annoyed due to which this office has fallen in an embarrassing situation before the high-up of the company and as well as before the valued customers.

“Keeping in view the situation, you are requested to take immediate measures and concrete steps to rectify the fault of ill programming of New Automatic Disconnection and Restoration programme which has led the work of disconnection/restoration to worst position.”

A divisional engineer at a telephone exchange told Dawn on Monday that the customer services department had to face the ire of indignant subscribers when their numbers were not as promptly reconnected as they had been disconnected. “It is extremely difficult for us to make them realize that the process of disconnection and restoration takes place automatically, run by a computer software. If the software fails to perform properly, we are not to blame,” he explained.