At least 70,000-odd telephone lines of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (Calcutta Telephones), including Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya?s residence, have gone out of service after a major fire in the transmission room of BSNL?s Circus Telephone Exchange on Hungerford Street late on Tuesday night.

While BSNL is pegging the losses due to the fire at Rs 1 crore, it will lose much more in revenues if the lines are not restored soon.

?The capital loss is Rs 1 crore and if the situation continues to be the same in the next three days we would lose revenues of another Rs 1 crore,? said S K Chakravarty, chief general manager of BSNL Calcutta Telephones.

?Around four lakh calls are made in that area everyday and we earn almost Rs 1 crore in revenues in three days,? he pointed out.

Chakravarty said BSNL will try to restore lines of the VVIPs ?as soon as possible?.

Around 64,500 telephone lines, 12,000 broadband lines, 1,600 lease connections and 60 important business establishments are out of service. ?The services are going to be restored from 10 am to10 pm on Thursday. The important business establishments will be getting back the services by tomorrow night and the residences will get back the service in seven working days. The total service restoration process will be completed in seven days,? he added. Services in hospitals like National Medical College Hospital, Chittaranjan Hospital and Shambhunath Pandit have been affected too.

The major fire also put a spotlight on BSNL?s lack of fire-preparedness. ?An expert team has been formed to look into the matter and we are also thinking of instituting, after consultations with team members, special fire fighting services or training in the telecom sector,? Chakravarty said.

For all affected landline customers talk time of Rs 100 in their mobile phones of any operator will be adjusted with their next telephone bill. Also, three centres have been set up (from 10 am to 10 pm) at Telephone Bhavan, Ballygunge Place and Entally Telephone Exchange for accessing broadband connections and making STD calls free of cost.