Those who received demand notes two back are unable to get connections yet, subscribers alleged.

Shahedul Arefin from12/13 Sher Shah Shuri Road, Mohammadpur said that BTTB had issued a demand note to him in July 2004 after he deposited Tk 10,000 for new connection and an additional amount of Tk 500 to obtain the demand note, but the connection is yet to come.

Shahedul said that whenever he went to the Mohammadpur Telephone Exchange at Iqbal Road with his demand note, authorities concerned gave various excuses.

"When asked about my connection, they said it was not possible to give a connection because of the non-availability of adequate cables," he said.

Like Shahedul, many others in the city, waiting for new connections are frustrated with the low quality performance of the state-run telephone operator.

BTTB sources said that the total number of 1.12 lakh applications for new connections in the country are still pending, while a total of 19,000 demand notes have been issued, of which 17,093 were in favour of applicants within the capital.

"We receive hundreds of applications and keep on issuing demand notes," said an official of BTTB (West), seeking anonymity.

But the fact is that no sufficient underground cable network facilities are available in many areas of the city.

The official also said that it was not possible to cater new connections to the increasing population in the city.

"The Dhaka population is growing; the number of applicants, increasing; but the network facilities are static," the official added.

Sources said that BTTB has the capacity to provide new connections in an area with a population of 5,000. But if the population in that particular area increased to over 30,000, what could the BTTB do. "The demand and supply gap with continue to exist," the official further said.

On the other hand, the zonal offices are crowded with hundreds of people who have received BTTB demands notes, but are asked to wait for an indefinite period to receive connections.

On July 30 this correspondent visited some of the BTTB zonal offices in the city and found applicants who alleged to have paid the BTTB staff up to Tk 2,500 as brines in addition to the official demand note amount of Tk. 10,000.

"The BTTB staff take bribes and assure us of giving connections soon but our wait is indefinite," Habib Ahmed, an aggravated applicant said.

When asked why they are giving large numbers of demand notes, with such a lack of network facilities in many areas of the city, a senior BTTB official said that customers were forcing them to issue demand notes.

"A demand note does not guarantee a connection, which is given only when loops are available at the local exchange," he said.

Under these circumstances BTTB recently reduced the new telephone connection fee by almost 40-50 percent throughout the country.

When asked why telephone connection charges were reduced, the same senior official said that BTTB is facing stiff competition from private land phone operators and losing Tk 100 crore every year. The reduction is to lure new subscribers.

Sources said that the traditional underground cable networking system is quite complicated, time consuming and getting permission from the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) is a tough job.

"We will gradually turn to Optical Network Unit (ONU) or Remote Switching Unit (RSU) given a period of six months," said Afsar Alam, general manager, BTTB (West), Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Telephone Bhaban.

"It will make the system flexible to both us, and the subscribers," he added.

A source of Zonal office at Iqbal Road, Mohammadpur said: "The BTTB staff working on the lines make the system more complicated to obtain certain benefits."

"Political influence, intervention of Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA) leaders and a few of our officials make it impossible for us to ensure a transparent and corruption free environment in this sector," he added.

But linemen from different zonal offices said that they are ill paid. "It is quite impossible for us to maintain our families with such poor salaries," said a lineman of sub-office in BTTB at Iqbal Road, Mohammadpur, adding that they are compelled to accept bakshish (tips) from the subscriber.

"It cannot be termed as bribes, they (the subscribers) want us to have some refreshments," the lineman added.

The BTTB has now 8.45 lakh land phone subscribers in the country against its capacity of 11.70 lakh subscribers. Of the total subscribers, six lakh are from Dhaka city.