Theft and fraud

It is part of common life. There was a store room and the scrap material was dumped into that room. This room was open door and no roof arrangement. a night watchman used to take care of this store room. one day a thief entered that room in the late night hours and started collecting some scrap material. The watchman saw this and he hit the man using a heavy article. That man escaped. Many useful things related to line work were available there. This system of store keeping was good as long as there is no theft. But it was a weak point. People were busy in their day to day works.

On a fine day some of the line wires were recovered from the field and dumped in the store room. Next Day those things could not be traced. It was embarrassing situation. We did not understand what to do. The whole office building was rented one.

The store room itself was managed without a door and roof. We kept mum. Had it been reported to boss, he may insist for police complaint, and the problem of chowkidar will arise.

When someone is deeply involved in a particular action at constant thought, he may miss some other aspects of the act, probably the theft. Theft is to be anticipated and a precaution be taken so that you are at no risk. Once a person goes to a bank and withdraws lot of cash and some thief monitors the act and pulls the cash bag and escapes. It becomes an embarrassing situation.

Department of telecom was owned by the Central Govt of india. Information transmission has strategic importance. It was a monopoly institute. Providing communication at affordable rate to the general public was the main activity and goal of the unit called DOT.

As the modernization started, the demand also increased all over the nation. I was a part of the modernization activity. Around 1980, it was still primitive. Most of the things were manual. Once the electronic systems were available, the rapidity of development and giving new connections on demand was the motto of the government.

The workload increased. Additional buildings were taken on rent basis for housing the new offices needed to house additional offices. This time i was working as SDE Phones from a rented building. People used to visit this office for their needs.

Occasionally, another type of people started visiting these offices. Probably the same people might have visited the state govt offices where they might have seen the corrupt activities and many times they fetch a part of corrupt money from officers. Some dalit youths used to do this activity of Dadagiri. I was new to such atmosfere.

One day a team of “dalit dadas” entered into my room. They asked money, stating that there was a political meeting at Bhalki and they intend to attend to that meet and they need money as their petrol expenditure to reach that spot. They were asking about one thousand rupees. I was stunned. There was no such provision in my department. If at all it was to be done i had to pay from my pocket. Or i have to do some wrong thing to show false expenditure through bogus voture. I was quite like a fish out of water.

People expect illegal money. Most of the politicians are corrupt. They force the officers to do money adjustments. It happens in public offices. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is why we are fools. Do we have integrity and national patriotism?

We say one thing and do the other. Here we suffer as a nation. When doing and saying match, there is no fear of any body. And that is the nationalism and patriotism.

Learning in Science College

I was a PUC Science student in 1970. I walked to my classroom after a satisfactory meals. It was chemistry period. As soon as the class commenced, after ten minutes , I was feeling sleepy. My head started hanging back and forth. The professor Mr. Desai, happened to see my state and he called and asked me to stand up for a while. I was ashamed of this instance.

The subject was new and interesting, yet satisfied meals and a long walk more than a kilometer made me sleepy. How-ever, I did not opt for chemistry in my degree course. Instead I chose Mathematics as major subject and Physics as minor one.

It was the only college in Bidar city. The gold rate was Rs 200/- per 10 gram. Admission fee was also Rs 200/- for science course. It was a problem for poor people like me. My in-laws had given me one gold ring [10g] in my marriage which was held in 1969 summer. This I sold for Rs 180/- and secured admission to science college at Bidar. It was a private college. No government college was opened yet in Bidar district.

My brother in law was a B.A. final year student in the same college. We became roommates for one year period. For the next year I applied for Government loan scholarship on merit basis and I was sanctioned the said scholarship for my science degree which I completed in 1973.

My father lost his life in a land acquisition process. He was cheated by the land vender himself. After his death, the village elders transferred the rights of that land in my name. The land registration was written in Urdu language in Bidar sub registrar office.It was very costly affair. At the cost of valuable life of my young father Mr, Gundappa Kumbar Hochakanalli, who was about 42 years old and a bread earning member of our family.

Mother was suffering from TB. After loss of father, I went for labour work for a day in a sugar making Khandsari factory. I worked all the night as waste disposer without a rest. By morning 8 o’clock my duty was over and I was offered Rs. two only as my wages. This made me to continue my study, as I hoped that I may get better job after my education.

I was struggling to arrange for SSLC exam fee of Rs.25/- and my aunt Ratnamma helped me at this critical time by selling half quintal jawar. This help I never forgot in my future life.

Things were not that much easy. Spent six months of PUC Science without reference books of basic physics. Yet I stood second to my college in final PUC exam. Of the total 300 students strength, only 90 had cleared the exam. One fellow got first class [Mr.Basuth Ali, whose brother was a teacher]. Twelve got second class and I was topper in that list of 12 students.

I was offered free ship and the fee I gave to the institute was returned [Rs 300/-]. I use this money for next year admission fee. Thus the story goes.

When I applied for loan scholarship, which was sanctioned for complete degree course [four years], the college clerk deceived me and took my acknowledgement of receipt and gulped Rs.720/- completely. The person wanted to hold my final year scholarship also and deliberately told me that it was not received the amount for that academic year. I was kept in darkness. Several repeated enquiry did not yield the result. It was famine those days and i told my story to my brother in law Mr, Veerappa. I also said him that, if the term fee was not paid, i would not qualify for appearing in the final year examination.

He took me to a relative’s village who was a petty shopkeeper, called Mukund Sultanpur. This man arranged for the money I was in need and thus I paid the fee and could appear for the final degree exam. Meanwhile my grandmother Narasamma happened to visit my rented room and she saw my hardship and offered me her nose ring [4gram gold] which I sold to get my food needs till the final year examination was completed.

After the exam, I was working as literate mazdoor in PWD Division office Bidar, in famine relief works fund, for a couple of months. One of my close friends, Mr. Swami appeared near my rented shelter and announced that the college notice board had a message, to collect the final instalment of loan scholarship amount of Rs 720/-. This time the clerk’s trick did not work. The internal audit might have asked the management, why the payment was not made to me.

Thus I earned my science degree which was very costly. However it yielded results ,as I was selected to Post and telegraph department in 1974 summer. This was a turning point of my life and service.The last instalment of scholorship money which I collected, I used it to stay at Gulbarga during my two months induction course period. It was the initial course, for a Telephone Operator post in manual telephony.

After an initial five years service, I appeared for a departmental competitive examination for the post of ‘Phone inspector’. The exam was held in polytechnic collage Gulbarga. There were about 75 participants who came from different districts of Gulbarga division to take part in the examination. In the exam, only two candidates were selected from this center. I was one of the two. My hard work done during degree ,fetched me a promotion. I was elated with new hope for better life. It was 1980, and I was trained in Hyderabad RTTC for the new post for a period of six months. I was posted to Sandur Telephone exchange as in-charge officer. After working for one year, I again appeared for competitive examination for the post of junior engineer; this time from Bellary division. Among 70 candidates who participated from Bellary division, only three were successful. I was one among the three. Thus I had entered the executive service as Junior Engineer.

After 1999, again chemistry fascinated me. It all started from Photo synthesis and the break down of water molecule and liberation of energized electron and formation of ATP molecule. I went on reading chemistry and the property of elements and formation of natural minerals. Formation of sedimentary rocks like lime stones, the sail formation attracted my attention. The early history of chemistry and discovery of hydrogen ,oxygen ,the carbon dioxide is interesting. Establishment of The law of conservation of mass, by Lavoisier opened the new thought of building blocks ,the atoms and elements.

Indian Telephones 

Calcutta was the British Capital of India, when the first Telephone service arrived in India. The trunk-lines were gradually installed between large metros. Pune and Hyderabad C-8 line was an example to that effect. To multiply the channels, repeater stations were installed on the route-way, like one at Humnabad, another at Zahirabad etc. The Pune -Hyderabad route had many repeater stations. They were needed for signal amplification between the metros linking trunk lines. So erection of physical lines was a need of the hour. Lot of man-power was engaged and later recruited as line staff. These things repeated all over Indian sub-continent. The system started expanding even to large villages, to open Public Call Offices[PCOs] during 1960-70s period. This system was called open wire system of communication.
Then came the era of under ground cables for local lines. Since each telephone line needed two conductors separately, right from The central telephone office to subscriber's premises, cabling was a must for local individual subscribers lines. Coaxial cables were installed between cities for multiple channels. Then the microwave towers arrived to replace C-8 lines all over India during 1980s. The Bangaluru-Nagapur microwave route is an example.
The  1990s saw the installation of Optic Fiber Cables [OFC routes] all over India, as the final networking system between all cities and towns. This enabled us to extend internet services to the general public in 1999 in India. A gate-way switch was installed in Mumbai for this purpose. This period is also called mobile telephony era. The all earlier wire systems were gradually disappearing. Private service providers were licensed by the Indian government to make the services competitive and  cheaper. BSNL was created out of DOT as a service provider. Now[2019], all most all adults in India hold a personal mobile set to communicate at affordable rates.

Telephones landmarks [India]

1876-The telephone was invented in USA.

1881-The Oriental telephone company, was licensed to open telephone exchanges in India

1882- First Telephone exchange was opened in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Ahmadabad.

The central exchange Calcutta had 93 subscribers.

1907-First central battery telephone exchange installed at Kanpur.

1913-14- Automatic telephone exchange opened in Simla, [HimachalPradesh].

1927-Radio Telegraphy started between India and UK.

1933-Radio telephony started between UK and India.

1953- A 12 channel carrier system was installed for trunk working in India.

1960- The STD service between Lukhnow and Kanpur was commissioned.

1975- First PCM system installed between Bombay and Andheri, for local junction working.

1979- The OFC [Optical fiber cable] system was installed at Pune, for local junction working.

1984- C-DOT [committee on development of Telematics] established for manufacture of digital switches.

1995- First mobile telephony service started at New Delhi.

The department of posts and telegraphs was owned by Central Government of India. The telephone exchanges were controlled by P and T department. Post Master General was the head of a circle. Indian telephone industry [ITI] was the public sector company to manufacture the system requirements of Telecommunications.

1985-DOT [Department of Telecom] was separated as independent department.

1986- Mahanagar Telephone Nigam [MTNL] and Videsh Sanchar Nigam [VSNL] were separated.

Microwave towers were installed along the length and breadth of the country as trunk routes. STD services were extended to District headquarters. Digital exchanges were manufactured and large scale expansions were carried out with modern switching centers. OFC cables were buried throughout the nation for trunk services.

Liberalization activity started to meet the demand of the general public.

1997-TRAI [Telephone regulatory Authority of India] was constituted.

2000-TDSAT [Telecom Dispute Settlement and appellate Tribunal] was formed.

The Operating wing of DOT was converted into a corporation called Bharat Sanchar Nigam [BSNL].