On 23rd May, 2014, nearly 45 students and 4 teachers of Sri Sarada Math-Rasik Bhita-Shiksha Sanskriti Peetha visited the Tata Communications Ltd or Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited at Ultadanga, Kolkata. This visit was organised as a CSR initiative by TCL in collaboration with m-junction on the occasion of the World Telecommunication Day (17th May).
In the 1990s, Videsh Sanschar Nigam Limited (VSNL) had the monopoly in handling all ISD calls across the country. Though now it doesn’t have the monopoly but it still holds an important place in India regarding transmission of data and voice calls to different countries.
The day began with the assembling of students in the auditorium of TCL.
Mr. Ravindra Gudihal, Branch Head of TCL, Kolkata welcomed all the students and started his speech by explaining to the students the different services offered by TCL, the present market demands, their sales tactics, future plans and the prospects of youngsters in the IT and telecom sector in the near future. The students also asked many questions to him.
Next the students saw a presentation on “Safe internet practices” presented by Mr. Biswajit Dutta who readily answered the questions asked by the students.
After a sumptuous lunch at their cafeteria, they were taken on rounds to different floors of the building in small groups led by their technicians. The 5th, 6th and 11th floors of TCL are technical floors and are under high security. The students were allowed to see the 6th floor which is the ‘server floor’ through glass pane. The 11th floor is basically a processing floor where data from 6th floor is processed and transmitted to various networks. The students were allowed to go inside the 11th floor with special permission and they were shown routers, multiplexers and various other devices. The devices kept here had numerous optical fibres for faster transmission. The students were also told about the workings of these devices on different frequencies. On this floor they were also taken to a room where devices were kept which were previously used to maintain communication with Myanmar, Nepal, China, Bhutan and other countries but due to high operational cost, has become obsolete nowadays.
The vastness of this communication world enriched everybody and made it an awesome experience for the entire group.
This opportunity to visit the vast infrastructure of telecommunication in the high security zone of TCL was indeed a rare privilege for the students of Rasik.