THE SPECTACULAR RISE AND FALL OF PCO BOOTHS OVER THE YEARS

THE SPECTACULAR RISE AND FALL OF PCO BOOTHS OVER THE YEARS

PUNE: A few days ago, our 45 plus group had gathered, as usual, at home of one of the members, reminiscing and discussing the good old days when someone mentioned ‘STD/PCO booth’. Instantly, the drawing room fell silent and we began savoring our nostalgic journey down the memory lane. This seemingly eternal blissful journey, was interrupted by Sachin, 10-year-old son of our host, with an innocent yet startling question “Dad, what’s a STD/PCO booth?.” We all looked at each other and giggled aloud realising that we’ve started crawling towards the mark of ‘Passé Generation’. 

Eager and captive audience always inspires even the introverts; here, we had a battery of extroverts and ‘experts’ waiting to pounce on any such opportunity. The lesson started with the historical perspective of ‘Centre for Development of Telematics’ (C-DoT), an autonomous body, headed by Sam Pitroda. C-DoT ushered in the telecommunication revolution in late 80s which introduced the ubiquitous, Black on Yellow-signed Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) and Public Call Offices (PCO) facility which offered cheap and easy domestic and international public telephones all across the country.   

As the penetration increased and the tariffs decreased, there was a spectacular numeric surge, in fact, in their heydays, booths numbered around 24 lakhs across country. Livelihood of many families was met by this yellow box. The remote connectivity in Jammu and Kashmir and North East enabled Army jawans to remain in touch with their nears and dears who otherwise were solely dependent on letters. 

Mid 90s witnessed the government opening the sector to private players which drove the next phase of telecom revolution and introduced cellular telephony in our country. With the passage of time, mobile handsets as well as the tariffs became more and more affordable thus propelling mobile subscribers exponentially.

The features, privacy and low tariffs proved too lethal to yellow boxes whose popularity diminished gently, initially, and later, nosedived steeply. Large number of operators quickly diversified into xerox, stationery, mobile  recharges laying rest to their once highly rewarding enterprise.   

Sachin’s next question on any survivors launched us into ‘Look and Locate’ mission. We divided ourselves into three small teams. We located Ujjwala Joshi, proprietor of Shri Sunrise Sales, Sadashiv Peth who said “10 years ago, there were seven PCOs including mine in close vicinity but today, I’m the lone operator of a coin phone. A decade ago, it was a very profitable business, however, now, I barely make it even. During ‘glory days’, the average footfall was over 80 callers while now it’s barely 15 a day. I used to empty coin box every alternate day then but now it’s once in a week. I’m running the coin phone as a social welfare measure for nearby hostel students from rural areas who can remain in touch with their parents. Occasionally, we get callers who have exhausted their mobile battery.”

After exhaustive search, we interacted with a ‘young’ old man, Dinkar Gokhale, 77 who runs ‘Gokhale Mini Market’ to remain active and pass the time in old days. He recalled that the coin phone was installed six years ago when average daily footfall was over 70 but now it varies between 15-30. Gokhale said “I’m not looking at profit or loss at my age, it’s a facility for the needy which will stay till the closure of the shop. Maintenance is the biggest issue with the coin phone as one doesn’t get spares or qualified mechanics.”

One team interacted with Vaishali Irla, AGM (MPCC) and PRO, BSNL who said, “Initially, there was a long waiting for PCO applications. But today, only 2,921 landline PCOs and 49 coin box phones are functional in Pune Division.” 

Our victorious teams once again converged at our host’s abode with a feeling of Déjà Vu. As we settled for deserving tea break, we started discussion on next mooting question, ‘Has e-mail and mobile phones endangered the art of letter writing?’. Probably, STD/PCO booths had insignificantly endangered the art of letter writing but we all felt e-mail and mobile phones have definitely endangered this art and probably, in far future, it’ll become extinct.  

THE THEN BSNL RATE TARIFFS
- Full, Half, 1/3 and  (Time based)
- rate started at 9 pm
- rate time was most popular
- Post Kargil War, rate 
- provided to jawans in Kargil all day  

THE NUMBERS
- Around 24 lakh PCOs during peak
- Functional PCOs in Pune Division:
—2,921 landline PCOs 
—49 coin box phones

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