BTCL in loss of Tk 1,800cr in bills

Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL) has taken initiatives to realise outstanding bills accumulating Tk 702 crore till 2014 from various local agencies as well as individuals.
BTCL Managing Director eng Mahfuz Uddin Ahmed said it undertook a scheme to realise the outstanding phone bills from government and private agencies, and general customers by giving them 5-6 months.
“If this flexible approach fails to realise the dues, we'll take legal action against the defaulters,” he added.
Mahfuz also said they were trying to realise outstanding phone bills of Tk 1,062 crore from different international call carriers through legal procedure.
According to BTCL statistics, government agencies owe TK 102.46 crore, semi-govt organisations Tk 12.10 crore, private agencies Tk 313.18 crore, Bangladesh Railway Tk 1.12 crore, and newspapers/agencies Tk 1.17 crore to BTCL.
Besides, Tk 247.65 crore have been due as some telephone lines were disconnected due to non-payment of bills.
Moreover, 15 foreign private carriers (pre-paid system) have a total of TK 10.93 crore due to BTCL, while 52 foreign private carriers (post-paid system) Tk 989.11 crore and 26 national foreign carriers Tk 73.55 crore.
BTCL Director (international) Sharifuzzaman said international calls enter Bangladesh using BTCL's network and the call carriers have to pay Tk 1.5 cent per minute.
Failing to realise the dues, BTCL has stopped services of some international and national operators, he said, adding that the services of only two out of 78 international carriers (private), and 17 out of 26 international carriers (national) are operative, he added.
At present, 9.26 lakh customers have BTCL's line (connection). The company stopped providing services to one lakh customers due to various reasons, including non-payment of phone bills, said the BTCL boss.
BTCL counted a loss of Tk 3 crore last year due to cable theft, drop wire and some other reasons, he said, adding that some steps had been taken to make profit this year.
Referring to its new venture, Mahfuz said the company would introduce a new service named “Triple Play” with voice, video and data services. The customers can easily watch TV programmes by availing the service at a low price.
Apart from it, the BTCL has given optical link connection to 108 unions across the country while 1,000 more unions will also get the facility soon, he said.
He also said BTCL opened a new monitoring cell named System and Service Improvement (SSI) on January 21 for strengthening its service.