New Delhi, May 11: Thousands of telephone subscribers today demonstrated to protest against the hike in basic telephone tariff and sought Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's intervention to save consumers from the anti-people laws and restore facility of calling mobile phone numbers from public call offices (PCOs). The subscribers, led by the national human rights council, charged the BJP-led NDA government with helping the private mobile phone companies at the cost of consumers. They organised a unique demonstration where a demon-faced person with the board of BJP-led coalition government painted on him was shown throttling the neck of a consumer with the help of a telephone cord. This was meant to show how consumers were being mistreated in the BJP regime. The protestors said while the private mobile companies were launching new schemes to attract consumers, the Vajapyee government, which claims to be transparent and honest, was breaking the backbone of consumers with the help of Telephone Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). They said the consumers were facing a lot of difficulty as PCO owners are reportedly not allowing the customers to make calls to mobile phones.

They demanded that Vajpayee himself intervene to save the consumers from the anti-people laws and allow them to call mobile numbers from PCOs.

Meanwhile, the National Akali Dal workers burnt telephone sets at the Jantar Mantar to lodge their protest against tariff hike by the MTNL and BSNL.

Bureau Report