CHENNAI: When people prefer to stay at home or spend time planning their retirement with their family, 59-year-old K Panneer Selvam has been struggling for the past few years to make ends meet. He is one of the few physically challenged people running PCOs in the city. The dwindling patronage for PCOs has rendered him near jobless, and yet he spends his entire day guiding passers-by who approach him for directions or bus routes while he sits inside a small box-like telephone booth, situated adjacent to Meenakshi College in Kodambakkam.In a bid to uplift the disabled community, the central government came up with a scheme in 1986 under which physically challenged people in Chennai were given permission to set up a Public Calling Offices to make a living out of it.“I started my shop in 1989. It was a time when there were no mobile phones and the business flourished. About 500 calls were registered per day in my booth but today, I have barely 70 calls per day,” said K Panneer Selvam.“At the end of the day, my income would be somewhere around `25, which is not even sufficient to pay my electricity bill that runs up to `600 per month. I pay my bills from the house rent I get. My monthly income is just `450. Since I own a house, I don’t have the hassle of paying rent,” Panneer Selvam told City Express.Apparently, there were special schemes meant for the disabled that were scrapped by the government. “I have personally have made several representations to the Telecom Ministry to revoke the schemes and offer concession for us but of no avail,” he added.Another disabled phone booth operator, on condition of anonymity, said that the Corporation and police officials add to their problems. “They show up out of the blue and ask us to vacate citing various reasons. Once they demolished my shop and I had to meet several officials in the Corporation and spent around `50,000 to restore my booth,” he added.“Even the financial assistance of `1,000 provided by the state government to the disabled is difficult to obtain since there are plenty of formalities. The officials make us run from pillar to post asking us to get proper documents. Some even demand bribe to do their job,” he said. P Simmachandran, who was allotted a PCO in the quota reserved for persons with disability, handed over his PCO to a friend. “I used to run it until a few years ago. After the business became dull, I added a popcorn machine to the facility. Even then, it was a struggle.”According to Simmachandran, Secretary of the Federation of Tamil Nadu Physically Handicapped Association, the government had earlier said with regard to PCOs run by persons with disability that for every rupee earned, 80 paise would go to the service provider and 20 paise to the person running it. The Federation also wrote to the Telecom Ministry several times to consider modifying the sharing arrangement to 50-50. “We have also requested the government to grant permission to run General stores, stationary stores or photocopying business from PCO booths alloted to us, but there has been no change.”After years of struggle, many self-employed persons either choose to add to the services they provide or simply close it down and look for other more lucrative options. In some cases, people have taken extreme steps like ending their lives. Currently there are only about 20 to 25 disabled people in the city running PCOs.When contacted, the telecom department officials were unavailable for comment.
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