KOCHI: Seventy-year-old Kareem reached out to the big yellow book, the telephone directory on the shelf, turned a few pages and pressed the buttons on his landline.
The automated voice message said “this number does not exist”. Though the correct number is saved on his latest mobile phone gifted to him by his son, Kareem had no idea how to use it no matter how many times he has been taught. For people like Kareem, a telephone directory is something they trusted for years, something they turn to for emergence retrieval of numbers.
However, the BSNL have robbed them off their ‘comfort’ by not revising the directory for the last nine years. The last revision was made in 2005.
The latest one does not have many important numbers, including government offices. The inquiry number 197 serves no purpose most times, say senior citizens. Local inquiry helps after a long wait and the outstation inquiry is almost dead.
“We call the inquiry number for details because the directory is not updated. The local helpline is available after a long wait and the outstation helpline never works,” said Mathew Paul, president, Greater Cochin Development Council. The citizen group has requested the public service provider to publish a new directory for Ernakulam.
While one section of BSNL customers have moved on to the services of other providers, there are several others who stick to BSNL because of its legacy. They say it is brand loyalty that keeps them glued to the provider despite of the bad experiences.
“We have reached out to the officials several times but they just pass it off as a joke. Who relies on a directory in this digital era, they ask. But modernization doesn’t mean old habits must be erased completely. In fact, how handy is the computer when compared to a book?” asks S C Kuttalam Pillai, a 75 year-old retired government official.
Meanwhile, a BSNL official said that the directory has not been revised for a long time because many BSNL land line users have moved on to use the service of other providers and that the possibility of it getting revised is very less likely. Also, they do not find it necessary, they said.