Last Updated:February 24, 2026, 22:24 IST The scale of the ‘royal protocol’ appeared particularly jarring, given the telecom giant’s precarious financial health According to an internal circular, teams of officers were assigned to handle everything from reception at the railway station to the procurement of ‘snan’ (bathing) kits for a ceremonial dip at the Triveni Sangam for Vivek Banzal. File pic/X A routine visit by a senior BSNL official to Uttar Pradesh’s holy city of Prayagraj was abruptly cancelled after a lavish hospitality protocol went viral on social media. The controversy surrounds Vivek Banzal, a director with the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, whose planned two-day tour on February 25-26 was scrapped following a massive public backlash. Bureaucratic Overreach? The uproar was triggered by a detailed office order, dated February 19, issued by a deputy general manager in the Prayagraj business area. The document laid out a minute-to-minute schedule that involved the deployment of 50 staff members to manage 21 specific tasks, many of which veered away from official duty into the realm of personal valet services. …