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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 3, p. 443.

Vill] POSTS AN )D TELEGRAPHS 443 Press telegrams enjoy the privilege of dispatch at a far lower Press and Govern- rate than is allowed for ordinary private messages. Thus the ment charge for an inland press Deferred message is about one- telegrams. sixth of that usually levied, and for a foreign press message about one-third. Government telegrams, on the other hand, are charged at the same rate as ordinary private messages. Telegrams tendered at offices of the Telegraph depart- Telegraph ment are stamped to the requisite amount with special telegraph stamps. stamps; those tendered at combined post and telegraph offices may be prepaid in either telegraph or postage stamps. Certain post offices which are not telegraph offices are empowered to receive telegrams from the public and to grant receipts for them. Such telegrams are transmitted by post to the nearest telegraph office for dispatch. The table in the Appendix (p. 445) shows the growth of Growth the operations of the Indian Telegraph department between of tele- graph I86o-I and I903-4. In the first-mentioned year about II,ooo trans- miles of telegraph line were open, with I45 telegraph offices. actions. In i903-4 there were nearly 60.00ooo miles of line, with 2,127 offices, which dealt with more than 7, 250o,0ooo messages, of which nearly 6,5oo,ooo were for the public. The net revenue earned by the department showed a profit in that year of 3'7 per cent. on its capital outlay. But taking into account home charges, including those of the Indo-European Telegraph department, which is referred to later on, and which is entirely distinct from the Indian Telegraph department in respect of administration, the net result in I903-4 was (approximately) a loss of 9 lakhs to Government in respect of Telegraphs. In I8SI and I882 the Government of India granted to the Telephone Oriental Telephone Company licences to establish telephone exchanges exchanges at Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Karchi, and Rangoon. private At the same time permission was given to the company to lines. erect private lines, each under a separate licence, in the localities covered by the exchange licences. But the Govern- ment of India expressly reserved full power to erect exchanges itself, for its own purposes anywhere, and for the public in any place for which no licence had been granted to a private com- pany. It also reserved the power to grant licences to more than one company. The Oriental Telephone Company has trans- ferred its licences for Calcutta, Bombav, and Karachi to local companies, and licences have been subsequently granted for exchanges at Mioulmein and Ahmadabad. The Telegraph department supplies telephone exchanges and private telephone lines for the use of the various depart-