The Hindu Business Line : The `iron lady' of BSNL

AT Port Blair airport, the BSNL board welcoming visitors to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands read "Connecting India." But it was impossible to even buy a BSNL mobile phone starter pack, and Andaman and Nicobar has only one cellular service provider. The first words that came to mind were: Let the private players come here and BSNL will realise what business is all about.

But much of the irritation melted away after hearing the story of R. Sivagami, BSNL's Junior Telecom Officer (JTO) at Campbell Bay, on the southern tip of the archipelago, which was devastated by the tsunami on December 26.

The woman officer showed exemplary courage and held on to her post even as most survivors were fleeing the place. "The thought of leaving didn't even strike me; my only thoughts were on how to restore communications," says the feisty lady, originally from Tamil Nadu.

Appointed as a clerk in Andaman and Nicobar after graduating in 1981 from Tamil Nadu, she wrote a competitive exam in 2000 and after further training was promoted as JTO. Sivagami lives alone in Campbell Bay; her husband, a high school teacher, lives in Baratang Island four hours away and her two children are in colleges in Tamil Nadu.

"On that Sunday, around 6.20 a.m. the tremors came and I ran out of my house in my night gown. They kept coming in quick succession and were so severe that we could neither stand nor sit, so we all went flat on the ground. After a few minutes they stopped and I called my husband — the dial tone was still there — but couldn't get through."

As she was making herself a cup of tea, some of her staff members started shouting from outside: "The water is coming, rush, rush."

Her house is barely 300 metres from the sea. At first the "iron woman" was not rattled. "I thought let the water come; I can at least have my tea. But suddenly a man who works in the Coast Guard came running into my house and screamed: Madam, please leave the house and come out."

All of them then proceeded to the BSNL satellite station, which is on higher ground. "When the water receded I went back home with my technician to take some clothes, and more important, about Rs 50,000 which was the salary of my staff members."

After collecting this, she opened the backdoor of her house to find that the walls of the nearby temple had fallen and "the water had come to my door steps. Now I knew I had to hurry and ran out," recalls Sivagami.

By now it was 7 a.m., "but my thoughts were not about my house or my belongings but about my telephone exchange — with 630 lines — which is a seven-minute walk from my house. There was water everywhere and I feared the worst, so I sent my technician to check and he returned and said: "Madam, water has come right to the top, don't even think of going there now."

She sent him again at 9 a.m. directing him to retrieve the cartridges, "which we luckily keep on top of the cupboard. By then a fisherman's colony had been totally washed away and the army would not allow him to go inside the exchange, where by this time about 75 per cent of the equipment was submerged in water. But the technician somehow forced his way inside and got the cartridges."

Sivagami's challenge now was to restore communication. The next day, through satellite phone she contacted her superiors and gave them a status report of the equipment she needed urgently to restore communication links. "I told them that the main exchange had gone and gave them an idea of the extent of damage in the whole region."

But didn't she want to run away to save her own life?

"I didn't even think of it ... my house was safe even though I couldn't stay there; because the sea water had come, there was a lot of keechad (garbage) and a terrible stink. The worst thing was that two of my staff members lost their homes but I had to be firm and tell them that personal tragedy apart, they had to report on duty as there was a lot of work to be done," says Sivagami.

On December 29, flights started coming in and on December 31 she got her equipment. "All the time the tremors kept coming; now we would be running, next minute we'd be cooking some khichdi, then I'd run to my house to check its status ... and search for somewhere to sleep in the night ... all that went on," says the woman

On December 31, when Lt. Governor Ram Kapse visited Campbell Bay, the guesthouse where he stayed got the first line. As she relates excitedly how she next restored government office lines, the panchayat chief's line ... in all 85 lines within a week, you wonder about her family's trauma. "I contacted my husband through satellite phone the next day; he didn't even ask me to come to Port Blair because he knew I wouldn't!"

Kuldeep Singh Ganger, Director of Information and Tourism, Andaman and Nicobar, said, "When most people ran away to save their lives, she behaved like an iron lady ... a woman and officer of substance. There are many Kiran Bedis like her which the country needs to know about."

While Sivagami is still dreaming about putting up the new building to "restore full normalcy," the BSNL headquarters in Port Blair too had a rough ride on that Black Sunday.

"The antenna had tilted due to the tremors, water had come in; in some portions of the building fans and lights were hanging and telecom equipment was littered all over the floor," recalls P.K. Singh, BSNL's DGM, Andaman and Nicobar Telecom sector.

The exchange's employees were petrified, "but when they saw us enter the building, which had developed cracks all over the place, they slowly came in. Within 30 minutes we restored local lines but STD facilities took about 90 minutes."

Around 10.30 a.m., when they completed their work and left the place, they got the full impact of the havoc wreaked by the tsunami.

"But with there being no power at home ... and hence no TV, we were yet to know what was happening elsewhere in the world," he adds.

BSNL has suffered a total loss of Rs 15 crore from the tsunami in Andaman and Nicobar alone, says Singh.

South of Port Blair there are 10 exchanges and they were all partially or totally destroyed.

Apart from Sivagami, two other JTOs — Sashi Mohan Singh in Car Nicobar and Gisrish in Kamota — "not only remained at their posts but also restored services. Some of our smaller exchanges have been wiped away completely; you can't even show somebody that there was a telephone exchange. That was the extent of the devastation."

Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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