Chennai :

When Oriental Telephone Company Ltd of England started telephone services in a few Indian cities at the turn of the last century, only a few privileged citizens of Madras had a telephone. One of them continues to ring, at the Indian Commerce and Industries Co Pvt Ltd in Broadway.

The Beehive Foundry, established in 1907 as the flagship company of the Beehive Kowtha Group, received the connection in 1915.

Indian Commerce and Industries took over Beehive Foundry in 1924 and acquired the historic line with the purchase. Indian Commerce and Industries director Ramesh C Kumar, the fourth generation head of the company, retains the connection and intends to keep it in the family.

“Our first and currently working telephone line completed 99 years on July 11, 2014 and has entered the 100th year of service. It is a proud moment for us as a company and as a family,” said Ramesh, who BSNL felicitated on Wednesday as the owner of the oldest existing telephone line in Chennai.

The telephone number has changed so many times over the decades that it’s uncertain what it was to start out with, apart from the fact that it was a three digit number — and that the address of the connection remains Beehive Building, No 57 (Old No 29), Prakasam Road, Broadway, Chennai – 600 108.

“We first had a three-digit number, which changed to 2020 in 1952. It later changed to 21071,” Ramesh said. “With the introduction of Kalmandapam Telephone Exchange, our line shifted to the new exchange and it allotted us the number 555021. When the Harbour Telephone Exchange opened, the line shifted again and the number changed to 512221.”

When telephone subscribers had to adopt seven digit numbers, it changed to 5231477. Finally, when BSNL allotted eight digit numbers in metros in 2002, it became 25231477 and has remained the same till today.

Oriental Telephone — which was set up on January 25, 1881 under an agreement between Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, the Oriental Bell Telephone Company of New York and the Anglo-Indian Telephone Company Ltd — installed the telephone line on July 11, 1915.

“Our line was under Madras Telephones Company, which took over Oriental Telephone in 1923,” Ramesh said. “We had the billing address changed to include the name of our parent company only in the early 1990s.”

For Ramesh, the telephone line is a piece of history. “This is probably the oldest telephone line in the country,” he said. “It is an heirloom.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Daniel George, TNN / September 18th, 2014