Referring to the addition of new telephone lines in the township, Principal General Manager, Chandigarh Telecom Circle, Prithipal Singh, said the department's plans are geared toward the large-scale development which the area is expected to experience in coming years. Singh said the township has a total exchange capacity of 25,000 telephone lines, of which 24,000 telephones are working at present. This is against the total of only 8,000 telephone lines installed in Panchkula about three years ago.

With the installation of a new 5,000-line telephone exchange to serve telephones of the Manimajra area, the 5,000-line telephone exchange in Sector 7 of Panchkula, earlier feeding the telephones of the area, new telephones would soon be made available to consumers in the area.

With this, the DoT plans to clear the entire backlog of telephones in the Panchkula area within a fortnight, said Singh. The waiting list for Panchkula has been cleared up to March, 1999, and there are only about 300 telephones are yet to be installed in the area, he added.

Singh disclosed that as per DoT plans, a new modern ESS technology exchange with 15,000 lines capacity is planned for the area during the current financial year. The new technology equipment would have features like ISDN and video conferencing which are not available in the present E10B exchanges installed at Panchkula. In Chandigarh, such facilities are available in the Fetex technology exchanges.

Of the 15,000 lines planned to be installed, 5,000 lines are to be installed in the Sector 5 main exchange in Panchkula, another 5,000 lines would be installed to cover the demand for telephones in the Mansa Devi complex, while the balance of 5,000 lines will be used for meeting the requirements of various residential areas coming up in Sectors 14 and 20. A number of multi-storeyed flats are under construction in the area and DoT has now planned for prospective consumers in the area.

Singh added that detailed network planning in the areas could be possible only when housing societies inform DoT about their requirements. The DoT has appealed to societies to supply the information to enable them to plan for the area and thereby avoid frequent digging for laying the telecom cable network. The DoT has also sought details about construction activity from HUDA authorities.