Bsnl Plans Disaster Recovery Centre In Pune !

[Honest 836]

BSNL plans disaster recovery centre in Pune

Business Line l 30 Dec l Pune

To raise mobile subscriber base; plans more smaller exchanges.

A new operational support and billing support centre is also being set up in Chinchwad with an investment of Rs 250 crore.

Setting up a disaster recovery centre, a new operational support and billing support centre and installation of ERP system are plans BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd) Pune has chalked out for itself for 2009.

Mr V.K. Mahendra, Principal General Manager, told Business Line that a disaster recovery centre is being set up in Chinchwad in Pune on the lines of the disaster recovery centre in Bangalore. He said it would be set up at an investment of Rs 100 crore and is expected to be ready by August 2009.

Billing centre

Mr Mahendra said a new operational support and billing support centre is also being set up in Chinchwad with an investment of Rs 250 crore. He said it was part of the national network rolled out by BSNL, with the other support centres being set up at Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Kolkata.

The Pune centre would take care of the billing of the entire western zone, which includes Gujarat, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. He said that the entire customer database of the western zone would also be stored in Pune. He said as a backup, the Chandigarh centre would act as the disaster recovery centre for Pune and vice versa while Hyderabad would be linked with Kolkata. He said the trial phase is already on and is being carried out at Kalyan and Bhopal and is expected to be completely operational by mid-2009.

ERP solution

Mr Mahendra said in keeping with the technology, BSNL Pune is all set to implement a modular ERP solution. This module would include financial, HR, sales and distribution, financial accounting, quality assurance. However, he said that it was only at the tendering stage and would take a couple of years to be implemented.

Commenting on the Pune scenario, Mr Mahendra said it has already put up on the drawing board an Internet connectivity facility in the 2BHK apartments spread out in the city.

He said the aim was to make available the Internet facility in all the 2BHK apartments in the city and noted that approximately 1.5 lakh connections would be made available by 2011.

He said by March 2009, it would be setting up six smaller exchanges throughout the city. Currently, it has seven small exchanges in place and Vishranthwadi, Pimpri Chinchwad and Jagtap dairy, also in Chinchwad would be set up soon and the other three locations would be completed by March 2009. Mr Mahendra said broadband connections have been on the increase and currently it has about 32,000 connections in the city.

It would be adding another 50,000 connections in 2009. It is also in the process of setting up 400 more BTS (base transceiver station) for the mobile segment and of this, 250 would be in the rural area and 150 in the city.

At present, it has 200 BTS, of which 100 are in the rural area and 100 in urban. It has a three-lakh mobile subscriber base and is estimating to add another four lakh in 2009, he added.