GUJRANWALA, Jan 9: The Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has signed an agreement with a private company to operate and maintain all its customer service centres and telegraph offices, it is learnt on Wednesday.

The Karachi-based company, M/s International Contract Management (Pvt) Limited, has already started operating the service.

It is stated that contracting out the customer service centres and telegraph offices to a private company was the part of privatization policy of the government.

Soon after taking over the charge, the company has raised charges of telephone calls and fax. They are receiving about 50 per cent extra for faxing news stories or telephone calls from journalists and business community.

The journalists and business community strongly protested against overcharging and informed the PTCL general manager (telephones) about the practice.

DEATH: A condemned man will be hanged in the Central Jail here on Thursday (today) morning.

Convict Muhammad Tufail of Jandiala Kalan village was sentenced to death in a murder case a few months ago. His appeal was rejected by the Lahore High Court, the Supreme Court and the president.