Individual Army telephone subscribers can now be directly accessed from civil numbers.

Following some reported instances where attempts were made over the telephone by certain elements to ascertain the whereabouts of officers and their activities, all access to Army telephones was cut off.

At a number of stations, Army phones are directly accessible from civil lines by adding a specified prefix to the individual subscriber number.

After this facility was withdrawn, outsiders had to call up the Military Exchange and leave a message for the concerned officer, who would then get back later if warranted. The bar on access had also created several problems for subscribers as they were unaccesible to friends or relatives trying to reach them. Even the officers calling from outside could not get across themselves.