The Hindu Business Line : Landline talk: J&K, Bihar take the honours

According to the statistics for 2002-03 available with the Department of Telecom, telephone users in Jammu & Kashmir make an average of 17 calls a day, which is higher than the all India average of 14.6.

Those in Kashmir are followed by the phone users in Bihar who make an average of 15.5 calls. The average calls per day made by a subscriber in these two States exceed even the economically richer States such as Punjab and Maharashtra where telephone users make around 14 calls a day. The other big telephone users are in Orissa where DoT has recorded 15.3 calls a day.

Market watchers point out that the average telephone usage in relatively developed States was lesser, due to the fact that the consumers in these States were slowly shifting to mobile phones. They point out that subscribers in Punjab, Maharashtra and Gujarat were among the heaviest users when it comes to mobile telephony and therefore use less of fixed line phones. The other reason for high fixed line usage in states such as Bihar and Orissa is the high number of people from these States moving to other regions in search of jobs.

The trend is of course not true for metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai where the fixed line users make an average of 20-25 calls a day. Presence of corporate, industries, call centres and large retail chains in these cities makes fixed line usage high despite being the largest market for mobile connections.

The lowest usage of fixed line phone is in Himachal Pradesh where subscribers do not make more than eight calls a day. The other States where fixed line phones are not dialled frequently include Andaman & Nicobar Islands 9.6 calls a day, West Bengal 9.7 calls a day and Kerala where telephone users make a little over 10 calls a day.

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