nagpur :-BSNL complainants tired of being put on hold

In BSNL's multi-crore ad campaign, Deepika Padukone smiles pleasantly after using the services of the state-owned telecom company, but the customers are far from being happy. Not only are private users facing inconvenience due to BSNL's glitches, even government offices like the zilla parishad (ZP) are facing problems.

Vice-president of ZP Nitin Rathi installed a BSNL broadband connection in his office three months ago. He was quite happy with the service for about 15 days. But then, the phone stopped functioning completely. "Despite lodging several complaints in the CTO, nobody has responded. My office boy went there a number of times but they just lie that they'll send some technicians over the next day. But neither has the connection been repaired, nor have the technicians arrived. It seems they are extremely busy promoting new services like 3G rather than improving existing services," said Rathi.

Ravi Nagar resident Devyani Deshmukh lodged a complaint a month ago to change her instrument. "When I first filed the complaint, the custumer care told me that the instruments are not in stock. My landline is not working since a month so I lodged another complaint. I personally went to the CTO to follow it up but got the same reply. Now what is a common citizen supposed to do in such a situation?"

The landline services provided by BSNL is also riddled with complaints from private users. Lawyer Anand Parchure, a resident of Ram Nagar, is so fed up with the service provided by the company that he has filed a notice against BSNL. He has been using a BSNL landline since two decades. In his notice, he points out that his telephone is non-operational since September 1 in spite of registering a complaint about it. The complaint went unheeded, so he filed another complaint after which he was informed that BSNL is facing some 'technical difficulties' and his problem would be resolved soon. He has requested the district manager (telephones) to look into the matter personally, failing which he (Parchure) would claim damages.

PRO of BSNL B C Borkar said that complaints are usually sorted out within 48 hours. "The first step to file any complaint is to dail '198' and register it," he said. "But there are some cases where we are not able to do so. In such a case, the customers can personally contact me through the number given at the back of every bill. I will see to it that the complaint is sorted out once the docket number is provided to me."