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Bhutan Posts and Telecommunications
Mail and telecommunications services in 1991 were under
the
jurisdiction of the Ministry of Communications's
Department of
Posts and the Department of Telecommunications,
respectively. With
a labor force of nearly 900 employees, the departments
worked hard
to modernize Bhutan's telecommunications and to provide
links with
other nations.
Although a courier system for internal official mail
had been
in existence for centuries, the modern postal system was
introduced
only in 1962. Prior to then, external mail was sent
through Tibet
or India. Bhutan's first postage stamps were issued in
1955 for
internal use only. After the construction of modern roads
post
offices were built throughout the kingdom. Bhutan joined
the
Universal Postal Union, a specialized agency of the UN, in
1969.
Thereafter, improvements were made in handling
international mail
and foreign parcels. By 1988 there were two general post,
offices,
fifty-five main post offices, and twenty-eight branch post
offices.
The sale of commemorative postage stamps has been a
foreignexchange earner for Bhutan since 1962, when the first
internal- and
external-use stamps were issued, with the help of a London
printer,
in rupee demoninations. Until tourism passed the sale of
colorful
stamps to foreign collectors as the major foreignexchange earner
in 1974, the sale of postal stamps was the nation's
principal
source of foreign revenue. Sales averaged around US$44,000
a year
in the 1970s, peaking at US$100,000 in 1979. In a related
activity,
Bhutan also issued commemorative gold and silver coins as
a revenue
generator.
As of 1991, Bhutan had more than 750 kilometers of
telephone
trunk lines, one digital telephone exchange in Thimphu and
twelve
analog exchanges in other area. The Department of
Telecommunications planned to modernize all telephone
exchanges and
to connect all eighteen districts to the digital system by
1997.
The telephone exchange in Thimphu by 1990 had a
10,000-line
capability. As the 1990s began, there were nearly 2,000
telephones
or one telephone for about every 700 people according to
official
information. Internationally, Thimphu was linked by a
microwave
system through Hashimara to satellite ground stations in
Calcutta
and New Delhi. The link, financed by India in 1984,
provided sixty
channels and had a potential for 300 channels when fully
operational. Additionally, using a twenty-terminal French
Sagem
telex system, service between Thimphu and Phuntsholing was
installed in 1986, and international service through New
Delhi was
connected in 1987; this facility was relocated to Calcutta
in 1990.
In 1989 the installation of a Japanese-equipped ground
satellite
station at Thimphu using International Telecommunications
Satellite
Corporation (Intelsat) circuits substantially enhanced
international telephone service.
There were thirty-nine point-to-point high-frequency
radio
stations, including two installed in Bhutan's embassies in
New
Delhi and Dhaka in 1988 for internal administrative
communications.
There also were eight telegraph offices. The
government-run Bhutan
Broadcasting Service in Thimphu started with three hours
of
broadcasts per week in 1973 and had expanded to thirty
hours per
week by 1988. An FM station in Thimphu and shortwave
receivers
throughout the rest of the country received its daily
programming
in Dzongkha, English, Sharchopkha, and Nepali. Whereas
there were
only 7,000 radio receivers in Bhutan in 1980, by 1988
between
15,000 and 22,000 sets were reported. In 1991 a new
broadcasting
complex was opened in Thimphu under the auspices of the
Department
of Telecommunications. Built with Indian aid, the complex
included
a high-power fifty-kilowatt shortwave transmitter capable
of
covering all of Bhutan and neighboring areas. There was no
domestic
television, but there was a big demand for videos,
especially in
the larger towns.
Data as of September 1991
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