Illegal Jammu And Kashmir ‘PCOs’ charge up to Rs 50/min for a call punemirror.indiatimes.com

Zahoor Ahmad Mir of Tangmarg traveled 38km to a friend’s office in Srinagar last Friday to make a call to his son, who works for a private power company in Jammu. This was after a shopkeeper at Pattan quoted “call charges” of Rs 50 per minute for using his landline. The desperation of a Valley cut off from the rest of the world for 51 days — and counting — has given birth to a business opportunity for many with functional landlines and the inclination to make a quick buck. “I decided to travel all the way to my friend’s office to call my son Sohrab rather than succumb to the demands of an unscrupulous shopkeeper. I was shocked to learn that there are many like him taking advantage of the situation,” Zahoor told TOI. While not all “opportunistic” landline owners are charging people at Rs 50 a minute for a call, makeshift PCOs are mushrooming in street-corner shops across Srinagar as the communication lockdown approaches two months. For every Zahoor who refuses to be taken advantage of, there are many others who quietly pay ISD rates to make STD or local calls from these illegal booths. Ghulam Hassan Dar, a resident of Palhallan village in Baramulla, paid Rs 30 a minute for a call to his son Mukhtar, a businessman in Bengaluru, a few days ago.