600 telephone lines disrupted in Thimi

More than six hundred telephone lines in various parts of Madhyapur Thimi have been disrupted for one week due to cable theft.

250 lines in Lokanthali, 150 lines each in Sagbari and Balkot, 100 lines in Brighter Thimi and 200 lines in Naya Basti went out of order after cables were stolen, Nepal Telecom’s Madhyapur Thimi Branch revealed.

According to supervisor at the Nepal Telecom Madhyapur Thimi Branch, Balkrishna Kafle, these telephone lines have become dysfunctional as the cables have been stolen at more than seven different places in the district. “Cable theft is on the rise in the district,” he said. “Whenever we install new cables, it is stolen in a day or two,” Kafle added.

According to him, NT has been urging security personnel to patrol theft-prone areas from midnight to four in the morning but they patrol only for two hours from eight to 10 at night. He said the frequency and trend of stealing the telephone cables has increased in the district and complained that no sooner the Branch installs new cables they are stolen in a day or two. This has caused a big problem for us, he added.

Kafle said the telephone services would be restored soon after replacing the missing telephone cables.

“It costs the company around Rs 300,000 to install telephone cables in a single place,” he informed.

Security personnel maintain they need to focus more on patrolling the highways to check the entry of arms. “The resources at our disposal are not enough. We cannot conduct multiple operations at once,” Inspector Madhusudan Neupane at Metropolitan Police Circle, Thimi, said.

He said personnel in plain clothes were currently patrolling the streets on motorbikes to catch cable thieves. He added – “We are hopeful such incidents will not happen in future,” he added.