Telegram service in India to be closed…

 

India's state-owned BSNL is to close its 160-year old telegraph service from the middle of next month, after the government declined to subsidise the little used service. The telegraph service will close on the 15th July. It is largely emails and mobile messaging that have killed off the need for the telegraph service.

 

With the Department of Posts also indicating that they have better ways of communicating, the service was destined to finally close down. The telegraph system is itself 176 years old, with the first message being sent on 25 July 1837 by Charles Wheatstone and William Fothergill Cooke who sent a message to each other via telegraph between Euston and Camden Town in London, UK alongside the line of the recently built London and Birmingham Railway.

From our Readers…

BSNL IS CLOSING DOWN TELEGRAM SERVICES    - Sudhir Jain

On 12^th June night, I received a call from local newspaper asking some telegrams from my collection. On enquiry, it was told that news has been flashed that Government of India is going to discontinue Telegram services w.e.f. 15^th July 2013. They wanted to print some telegrams with this news and they were not able to locate any telegram in their office. Yes, it is true that in the today’s email / SMS era, telegrams are no more in use. BSNL had incurred a loss of about 17,000 Crore Rupees in last two financial years. BSNL has planned a scheme to utilize their present Telegraph employees in other fields.

The word "telegraph" was first coined by the French inventor of the Semaphore line, Claude Chappe, who also coined the word "semaphore’. Telegraphs have existed in Europe from as early as 1792 in the form of semaphore lines, or optical telegraphs that sent messages to a distant observer through line-of-sight signals. In 1837, American artist-turned inventor Samuel F. B. Morse conducted the first successful experiment with an electrical recording telegraph. Telegraph is a device for transmitting and receiving messages over long distances, i.e., for telegraphy. In India, Telegrams were introduced in the year 1851.

: Sudhir Jain – Stana (MP)

email : sudhirjain@unistar.co.in