Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has managed to revive the popularity of its once revered landline phones to a considerable extent through a single scheme. There was a time when BSNL, through its landline phones dominated the telecom market across the length and breadth of India but the reliance of Indians on mobile phones was responsible for the decline of BSNL’s landline phones in terms of popularity.
As the number of mobile phone users in India continued to increase, the number of landline users continued to decrease and it seemed that in a matter of a few years from now, landline phones will be obsolete. Considering these possibilities, BSNL, on May 1, came up with an irresistible scheme which allowed its landline users to make unlimited calls between 9pm to 7am.
The most tempting thing of this scheme is the fact that through this scheme, users can literally call anyone in India free of cost during these 10 hours. This scheme is still available in the market and it seems that it is here to stay for a long period of time. BSNL’s General Manager (Calcutta Telephones) , Mr. K. C. Ghosh who is responsible for fixed lines has proudly stated, “In the last two months we have seen growth of 30 percent in registration for new connection compared to April 2015.”
Mr. Ghosh also said that the demand for reconnection had also jumped by 20-25 percent during the course of these two months. According to Mr. Ghosh, CalTel currently has 7.5 lakh fixed line connections. This figure used to be 14 lakh in 2003-04. Even the biggest critics of BSNL will admit this fact that coming up with such a scheme was the last thing which BSNL could have done in order to revive its ailing landline phones.
