“MP Balabhadra Majhi had written in a letter to the PM that when he met Prasad on July 22 to complain about BSNL’s service in his constituency.”
Union Telecom Minister and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday contacted Odisha CM and BJD party chief Naveen Patnaik over what his spokesman described as a “totally false and baseless allegation” levelled against him by the BJD MP of Nabarangpur in a letter to PM Narendra Modi.
MP Balabhadra Majhi had written in a letter to the PM that when he met Prasad on July 22 to complain about BSNL’s service in his constituency, the minister “was annoyed and answered in a threatening tone that nothing was wrong with BSNL service”. The spokesman said the minister “felt deeply hurt and distressed”, and has “taken up the issue of unprovoked allegation with the State Chief Minister Shri.Naveen Patnaik, who in return has sought clarifications from the Member of Parliament”.
The minister’s response also included an “Office Memorandum” from the Department of Telecommunications, responding to Majhi’s letter referred to the ministry by the PMO, listing the steps taken by BSNL to improve services in Majhi’s constituency. When contacted, Majhi confirmed that he got a call from the CM on the letter. “I am only interested in the development of my area and do not want to get into a war of words or score a point,” he said. “I only expressed my feeling the way I felt it. Maybe, it was the minister’s general way of reacting which I took as an offence. It was my first meeting with him.
I am, in any case, thankful to the minister that restoration and construction works have started,” Majhi, a first-time MP, added. Majhi’s constituency in southern Odisha includes the districts of Nabarangpur and Malkangiri, and four blocks of Koraput.
Nabarangpur district is the focus of a year-long assignment titled District Zero, which was launched by The Indian Express on August 15, 2015, to track poverty and transformation in India’s poorest district. In his letter to Modi, received by the PMO on July 29, Majhi wrote: “Sir, your dream ‘Digital India’ seems to be too distant to reach to the villages when I am fighting for Internet service in (the) block level.”
The spokesman added in a response released after the report was published: “Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad points out that he is a life time political activist and such behaviour is unthinkable for him. In fact, he is always available to political representatives even without prior information and is naturally courteous to all irrespective of their political affiliations.”
“In case of Odisha, in addition to the above mentioned exercise, the minister personally visited the state to have an on-the-spot assessment of performance of various departments under his charge and gave on-spot instructions wherever complaints were made by the local MPs,” the statement said.
However, while investigating MP Majhi’s complaint in Nabarangpur, The Indian Express did come across a number of subscribers in Umerkote, Jharigam and Chandahandi blocks who said they were not satisfied with BSNL’s Internet services.
The “Office Memorandum” attached along with the latest response from the minister’s office provided a break-up of the work undertaken by BSNL in Nabarangpur constituency following receipt of Majhi’s letters. The memo included a list of steps being taken specifically to improve BSNL services in Nabarangpur district, and specified that all of them would be completed before September 30, 2015.
Excerpts from the memo:
* Frequent disruption of OFC route in Chandahandi block and frequent damage of overhead OFC alignment: OFC laying has already been started by BSNL between Jharigam and Chandahandi. Approximately 1.5 km out of 4.5 km OFC has already been laid and the work will been completed before 31.08.2015.
* Frequent failure of optical fibre network in Chandahandi block: Installation of Minilink is in progress and is expected to be commissioned before 31.08.2015.
* Provision of broadband service to people of. Umerkote block: The DSLAMs (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer) are already installed in these places with capacity of. 240 Ports at Umerkote. Further, BSNL has planned to install WI-Max BTS (Base Transceiver Station) at. Umerkote after getting equipment from Chennai by the second week of September, 2015.
* Alternate arrangements of telecom services availability at Umerkote and Chandahandi: BSNL has informed that Papadahandi Umerkote Minilink will be installed by 30.09.2015. The relaying of OFC between Papadahandi and Umerkote will be completed by 31.08.20.
(Source Author with Help of Agent)
Prasanta Patnaik 
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