The Right Connections

VIPs, whether businessmen or politicians, have always played truant with the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL). All this is helped by its vigilance department, which chooses to sleep over a pile of irregularities that plague the Rs 4,500-crore navratna.

Early in 1993, MTNL officials discovered to their horror that a phone (3018899) allotted in the name of a former communication minister had been illegally diverted to the premises of Baljit Kapoor, ex-CMD, HAL, who is also known to be a middleman in defence deals. The telephone was monitored over a period of time, the talk recorded and the person served a bill of Rs 1.8 lakh. Initially he refused to pay. But when the case was handed to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the money was finally paid up. But how could the phone continue functioning after the minister had given up the communication portfolio? That's one of MTNL's unsolved mysteries. "There was no way we could have found out how long the telephone was misused," says an officer who had handled the case.

In another case, a telephone installed at the office of the Rs 1,200-crore Usha India in the name of its chairman emeritus Ram Kishan Kulwant Rai was found connected to non-metered lines (also known as service lines) from the Chanakyapuri exchange in Delhi. MTNL officers, again, are not sure how long this telephone was misused, but Usha was served with two bills totalling Rs 40 lakh. After paying Rs 18 lakh under protest, the company is  fighting it out in court to have the MTNL claim withdrawn.

Around the same time, the residential telephone of Apollo Group supremo Onkar Singh Kanwar was also found connected to non-metered lines. When Kanwar was served with the bill, he refused to pay. Ultimately, the money was paid to MTNL under protest. However, this time the matter was not taken to court.

Similar was the case of businessman Bhupinder Singh at West End—a posh colony in south Delhi. Connected to the non-metered lines, his telephone ran up a bill of over Rs 13 lakh during the period it was monitored by MTNL. Along with Rai and Kanwar, Singh was also served the bill. But senior DOT officials intervened. Since then, not only has Singh's telephone been functioning, but Rs 13 lakh has been added to the kitty of outstandings.

A Mumbai-based company, manufacturing smart card payphones, totted up a bill of Rs 4 crore. The amount is yet to be paid to MTNL. The company was operating public call offices for MTNL and had collected the money from the public. Not surprisingly, the license has since been withdrawn.

The anti-corruption unit in the Central Bureau of Investigation, to who MTNL refers such cases, is expectedly deluged with cases. MTNL's vigilance department offi-cials say that several cases are not handed over to CBI if revenue can be realised.

JVG Group, for example, had 114 of its telephones disconnected when it failed to clear its bills. Says one senior MTNL offi-cer based in Delhi: "Most of the defaulters are companies which are either doing badly or simply don't pay up. MPs corner the news since they had outstand-ings for their house and electricity too." All this adds to MTNL's receivables in Delhi—in the region of Rs 425 crore—and Mumbai, where it is Rs 125 crore.