BSNL brings satellite phones for BSF jawans at Kutch border

After Kashmir, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited(BSNL) has introduced satellite-based phone service for Border Security Force(BSF) jawans stationed at Kutch border in Gujarat. The service has been introduced at three border outposts (BOPs) in inhospitable and uninhabited Great Rann of Kutch, constituting Indo-Pak border in the Kutch-Sindh sector.

The cost of a satellite phone call comes to Rs 49 per minute but for jawans, the service is available at a token cost of Re1 per call per minute. Service started on April 16 is used by Jawans mostly to call their families anywhere in the country. Jawans usually keep mobile phones, but they are not of much use as no signals from mobile towers can reach far flung border area where mobile communication towers are banned.

In recent past when Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi visited Kutch border, one of the demands he had received from jawans was for better telephone facility on the border front itself. Soon after coming back to Gandhinagar, Modi forwarded this issue to Gujarat circle of BSNL. BSNL promptly took up this issue and BSNL’s Kutch district branch brought result within some months.