Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has been in the news recently for its VRS scheme. Although a mighty organisation at its inception, it never accounted for the impact of new players and slowly lost its grip over the telecom sector. Outdated protocol, high prices and tardy services have led to the giant’s steady downslide.
The husband recently visited the BSNL office to lodge a complaint regarding broadband. The peon rushed to him with a form asking, “Have you come for disconnecting landline, saar?” Guess we should just do that. My son-in-law once visited a service centre of BSNL along with his NRI cousin, who wanted a number for use when in India. The duo spent the best part of the night filling up the online BSNL application and excitedly selected the numbers, after mind-numbing calculations based on numerology and lucky numbers. The next day, my son-in-law got the printouts of the completed applications and the duo went in search of the nearest service centre. It was sunny, but a heavy breakfast goaded them to take a walk.
At the destination, the indifferent lady manning the enquiry counter replied in monosyllables to their questions without once lifting her head up. Finally she uttered a sentence, “Go to the next counter.” “But there is no one there!” protested the duo. “He must have taken a tea break. Wait for him,” she replied, her head hanging downwards. After a wait of half an hour the key person strolled in and took his seat. When my son-in-law explained the need, he said, “Oh, you need to approach the person sitting over there, handling such applications,” he said, pointing to the door.
By now the NRI cousin was perplexed, but my son-in-law, as yet determined, approached the person at that desk and handed him the applications. The person barely looked at them. Instead he tore out a form with a flourish, and said, “Fill this up and submit it. We do not recognise any online form.” When the duo remonstrated that online applications are promoted, the chap replied, “You go ask the lady”, pointing to the bent head at the enquiry counter. He got up from his seat as it was his lunch time. A rude “No online!” from the hanging head and they did the return march home, barely controlling their anger, as the cousin had a local plane to catch in two hours.
Sandhya Vasudev
Email: sandhya.vasudev@gmail.com