City dumps easy phone scheme

it's old wine in a new bottle, but there are few takers for it. days after calcutta telephones announced their latest scheme for new subscribers, it seems that the plan has bombed in the consumers market. the calcutta telephones, in their latest bid to lure in customers from the city and the state, announced on their website last month that they will be providing a telephone connection at rs. 300. the same scheme was next advertised on different national dailies. the announcement had an immediate effect. the calcutta telephones office was jammed with enquiry calls from potential customers who were enthusiastic over the fact that they are going to get a lifetime offer. but it was not long before they realised that they will actually have to cough up the whole amount in installments. the scheme, which was touted as a "special pre-puja offer" was valid between september 4 and september 9 had attracted not more than a hundred respondents. the telephone department had expected to cash in on about a thousand customers after the launch of the scheme. "when i left the office, there was a marginal response to the scheme," said amit bhattacharjee, general manager (new services) calcutta telephones. according to sources, bhattacharjee, who had recently promoted from general manager (operations and planning) to his current post had actually mooted the scheme. "i won't be able to say what's the response now. maybe the response had picked up. but in the its initial days it did not get the required result and fell far short of our expectation," bhattacharjee added. according to some customers who pulled out of the scheme, the scheme is in no way different from other schemes of the telephone department. "if you look at the advertisement closely you will notice that they have asked for a security deposit of rs 3000, which they say will be adjusted in three bi-monthly installments against their telephone bills without interest which is actually nothing but the same old thing packed in a new packet," said siddharta bhowmick, who had come to the head office of the calcutta telephones to pull his name out from the scheme.