Jagjivan Ram

Being fresh from the colonial experience, fresh from Gandhiji's

and grounded in the socialistic policies of the day, one of the most-remembered

acts of Jagjivan Ram, was the inauguration of the Calcutta—London direct

wireless telegraph service, on 12 March 1953. He also worked to increase the

network of post offices in the rural India. What he has not been credited for is

the fact that he also continuously advocated the setting up of public call

offices in the villages of India. In 1956, when the total number of telephones

in the country was less than 2 lakhs, visualizing public phones in the villages

would have been like asking a teledensity of 20 in rural India. His desire of a

public phone in every village has finally been achieved.