Numbers for numbing prices

Today's HT : If flamboyance is understood anywhere, it surely is in Punjab. If one businessman in Ludhiana flaunted his Rs 1.55 million-(Rs 15.5 lakh)-worth mobile number, there are now at least 100 others who will tell you that they bought their mobile numbers for anything between Rs 100,000 and Rs 1 million.

The craze among prosperous Punjabis to own such fancy or VIP numbers is actually sending mobile companies laughing all the way to the banks.

The state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is the latest mobile company to get richer by nearly Rs 10 mn this week by letting number-crazy people bid for such fancy numbers. So a number like 9864000005 went for a whopping Rs 900,000 to a successful bidder. The mobile numbers 9864000018 and 9864000001 went for Rs 850,000 and Rs 750,000 respectively.

Image : http://www.bioteams.com