Ranchi, May 16 (IANS) Shop owners in Jharkhand who have coin-operated telephone boxes installed are facing a new menace of fake coins being used to make calls.

Sunil Chakravarty, a betel shop owner in state capital Ranchi, has three telephone boxes of Reliance and Airtel companies. He claims to have collected 37 fake coins in the past 10 days.

'Everyday I get five to seven fake coins from the box. Till now I have collected 37 coins and this way I have suffered a loss of the same amount of rupees,' said Sunil.

These 'coins' are shaped like the Re.1 coin and are made of iron. They do not have any inscription on the two sides.

Indu Bhushan, who has a telephone box in his shop, says: 'I have collected 16 fake coins from the box. One day I caught a customer red handed using fake coins. When I threaten to hand him over to the police he accepted his fault.'

All major telephone companies have coin-operated telephone boxes which can be used to call anywhere in Jharkhand and Bihar.

The state police is still in the dark about the problem.

'We have not received any complaints from telephone booth owners. Unless we get a complaint how can we act? This is the first time that we have come to know that fake coins are being used to make calls,' said a police official in Ranchi.