My BSNL Experience
This is one of those "India experiences" that have to be shared. First, here's the background. You all probably know the ordeal it took to finally get an internet connection at home back in August. Well, this is the deal. I went and got an internet application form and a brochure on available plans from BSNL back in August.
The brochure apparently wasn't up to date, but I wasn't aware of that at the time. The type of modem I was interested in (a "Type II" modem) was one that had a wireless capability since I have a laptop and wanted a wireless connection in my house. But according to a brochure, the Type II modem wasn't available on a monthly rental basis (Rs. 100-odd per month), but was available only on purchase (Rs. 1800-odd). This would have made sense if we were going to keep the service for at least a year or so, but since we would cancel the service once I came back to the U.S. (since everyone else either doesn't use e-mail or uses it from work), I had preferred the rental option as more economical. But since according to the brochure, it wasn't available, I checked the "purchase" box on the application form. While turning the form in, I just decided to ask whether I could get a type II modem on rental. Apparently, I could (the brochure was wrong!), and I struck out the purchase box entirely, checked the "rental" box and even circled the whole rental box + lettering to get my point across.
This was in the second week of August. Fast forward to the first week of October, when I noticed the phone bill for August. My father was about to take it and pay it, this was something like Oct. 1, and the due date on the bill was Oct. 5. I was surprised to see the bill for Rs. 3,000-something and I saw that they had charged us the purchase price of the modem. This was clearly wrong and I told my dad we had taken the modem on rental. On Oct. 3, I called BSNL and complained. They checked my file, saw they had made a mistake, and issued a work order to change it from purchase to rental. Then they asked me to come down to this "Commercial Officer's" office to get a new bill.
I wasn't able to do that until Oct. 6, but since the due date was Oct. 5, my dad went ahead and paid it to avoid the late fee. When I went down there, they said I shouldn't have paid it and they couldn't give me a refund now, but would credit me the amount in the next month's bill. Fair enough, so I thought. The lady who I met even wrote down my phone number to credit it. Well, we recently got the bill for September 2006 and there was no credit!
So again I went to the commercial officer's office today. I first went upstairs and met the lady who I had met a few weeks back and told her my problem. She again pulled up my account information on a black-and-white computer screen from the 1980s (did I mention that BSNL was state-owned?). She saw three work orders (the first one dated Jan 2004 when we moved to this address, the second one dated August 2006, and the third one dated October 2006). For some reason, she opened the August 2006 work order and asked me to go downstairs and meet the commercial officer and talk to him about this first.
Kind of perplexed, off I went downstairs. I walked into what looked like this guy's office (AGM or Assistant General Manager) but it kind of branched off into three or four separate offices from what looked like a common lobby. At the desk of what I thought was a lobby, there was a nameplate which seemed to be different from AGM at a quick glance. So I kind of stepped forward to see what the other offices were.
The guy sitting there asked me in an irritated tone, "where are you going?" I asked him if he was the Assistant General Manager, and he said, "well, didn't you read what it says on the door?" Somewhat taken aback, I replied back, "well, your name plate says something different." He asked me, "what does it say?" When I read it, it said "AGM Comml (NE)", which probably meant Assistant General Manager Commercial (Northeast [Bangalore]). I was expecting something like "Assistant General Manager", so I missed it on a quick glance. I told him the same.
Then I sat down. He gave me a small lecture on how I should pay more attention to what I do and then asked me, "Haven't you ever been to a government office before?" And then he asked me, "How old are you?" I replied, "23" and he gave a chuckle. And here I am sitting thinking, "WOW!!! I thought the socialist inefficiency ended in 1991, what an idiot I am!". Well, to be honest, things have improved since 1991 since despite the lack of courtesy or customer service, he did get my job done whereas two decades ago, it would have taken a bribe to even initiate any kind of action!
Anyway, he pulls up my info on a similar black-and-white screen and says that a work order has already been issued to change my account to rental and I need to go back upstairs and talk to the lady about the refund. However, he does "very graciously" decide to write a note to the lady upstairs giving clarification. So I go back upstairs, *again* and meet the lady. I had to wait for some students (who looked like they were Korean) trying to get their problem fixed and their limited English skills was really taking some time. The lady wanted them to write a formal letter stating their complaint but they didn't quite understand what she exactly wanted, so the girl kept asking what she needs to write in the letter (poor souls, this was probably their first experience with Indian bureaucracy. In India, *everything* needs a written letter, which should then be signed in a minimum of two places. Even if you forgot your checkbook and want to withdraw money from your bank account at the bank (non-state owned even), you need to write a letter to the bank manager to that effect. In state owned banks, there exist things called withdrawal slips, but you have to fill them out, carry your "pass book" with you, get it stamped, get a token, and wait for a minimum of 15 minutes for a rude government officer to give you your *own* money! Anyway, once the lady gave them some directions, the Koreans left the office and she saw me again.
I very patiently, but firmly, told her that I had been downstairs and the guy had sent me back upstairs. I made a pointed effort to let her know that the guy had written her a note. She saw the note and sent me to one more lady to get the issue sorted. This lady looked at my form and she was like, "how can the commercial office simply change a purchase to a rental after you've purchased something? they're making our life miserable." I waited while my file was brought upstairs and the new lady and the old lady both had a meeting while I stood and listened. The old lady explained, "see normally you can't change a purchase to a rental, but since this was their mistake in the first place, the commercial office changed it." So finally, the new lady comes out of the conference and tells me, "Ok, we'll get this done. We'll keep this copy of your bill. You can collect an updated bill next week." It reminded me of a Dilbert strip where the HR person asks Dilbert to give him "the original + all copies of a document" while Dogbert screams, "don't do it! he'll lose it." (or something to this effect, anyway).
So where am I? Well, I still don't know that my account has been fixed and I may very well need to make *another* trip to the commercial office next week, but ... let's wait and see.
If you don't read anything in this post thoroughly, make sure you record the fact that I was actually asked, "haven't you ever been to a government office before?" There are so many things wrong with the statement, not the least that I should expect inefficiency and kow-tow to their egos.
The brochure apparently wasn't up to date, but I wasn't aware of that at the time. The type of modem I was interested in (a "Type II" modem) was one that had a wireless capability since I have a laptop and wanted a wireless connection in my house. But according to a brochure, the Type II modem wasn't available on a monthly rental basis (Rs. 100-odd per month), but was available only on purchase (Rs. 1800-odd). This would have made sense if we were going to keep the service for at least a year or so, but since we would cancel the service once I came back to the U.S. (since everyone else either doesn't use e-mail or uses it from work), I had preferred the rental option as more economical. But since according to the brochure, it wasn't available, I checked the "purchase" box on the application form. While turning the form in, I just decided to ask whether I could get a type II modem on rental. Apparently, I could (the brochure was wrong!), and I struck out the purchase box entirely, checked the "rental" box and even circled the whole rental box + lettering to get my point across.
This was in the second week of August. Fast forward to the first week of October, when I noticed the phone bill for August. My father was about to take it and pay it, this was something like Oct. 1, and the due date on the bill was Oct. 5. I was surprised to see the bill for Rs. 3,000-something and I saw that they had charged us the purchase price of the modem. This was clearly wrong and I told my dad we had taken the modem on rental. On Oct. 3, I called BSNL and complained. They checked my file, saw they had made a mistake, and issued a work order to change it from purchase to rental. Then they asked me to come down to this "Commercial Officer's" office to get a new bill.
I wasn't able to do that until Oct. 6, but since the due date was Oct. 5, my dad went ahead and paid it to avoid the late fee. When I went down there, they said I shouldn't have paid it and they couldn't give me a refund now, but would credit me the amount in the next month's bill. Fair enough, so I thought. The lady who I met even wrote down my phone number to credit it. Well, we recently got the bill for September 2006 and there was no credit!
So again I went to the commercial officer's office today. I first went upstairs and met the lady who I had met a few weeks back and told her my problem. She again pulled up my account information on a black-and-white computer screen from the 1980s (did I mention that BSNL was state-owned?). She saw three work orders (the first one dated Jan 2004 when we moved to this address, the second one dated August 2006, and the third one dated October 2006). For some reason, she opened the August 2006 work order and asked me to go downstairs and meet the commercial officer and talk to him about this first.
Kind of perplexed, off I went downstairs. I walked into what looked like this guy's office (AGM or Assistant General Manager) but it kind of branched off into three or four separate offices from what looked like a common lobby. At the desk of what I thought was a lobby, there was a nameplate which seemed to be different from AGM at a quick glance. So I kind of stepped forward to see what the other offices were.
The guy sitting there asked me in an irritated tone, "where are you going?" I asked him if he was the Assistant General Manager, and he said, "well, didn't you read what it says on the door?" Somewhat taken aback, I replied back, "well, your name plate says something different." He asked me, "what does it say?" When I read it, it said "AGM Comml (NE)", which probably meant Assistant General Manager Commercial (Northeast [Bangalore]). I was expecting something like "Assistant General Manager", so I missed it on a quick glance. I told him the same.
Then I sat down. He gave me a small lecture on how I should pay more attention to what I do and then asked me, "Haven't you ever been to a government office before?" And then he asked me, "How old are you?" I replied, "23" and he gave a chuckle. And here I am sitting thinking, "WOW!!! I thought the socialist inefficiency ended in 1991, what an idiot I am!". Well, to be honest, things have improved since 1991 since despite the lack of courtesy or customer service, he did get my job done whereas two decades ago, it would have taken a bribe to even initiate any kind of action!
Anyway, he pulls up my info on a similar black-and-white screen and says that a work order has already been issued to change my account to rental and I need to go back upstairs and talk to the lady about the refund. However, he does "very graciously" decide to write a note to the lady upstairs giving clarification. So I go back upstairs, *again* and meet the lady. I had to wait for some students (who looked like they were Korean) trying to get their problem fixed and their limited English skills was really taking some time. The lady wanted them to write a formal letter stating their complaint but they didn't quite understand what she exactly wanted, so the girl kept asking what she needs to write in the letter (poor souls, this was probably their first experience with Indian bureaucracy. In India, *everything* needs a written letter, which should then be signed in a minimum of two places. Even if you forgot your checkbook and want to withdraw money from your bank account at the bank (non-state owned even), you need to write a letter to the bank manager to that effect. In state owned banks, there exist things called withdrawal slips, but you have to fill them out, carry your "pass book" with you, get it stamped, get a token, and wait for a minimum of 15 minutes for a rude government officer to give you your *own* money! Anyway, once the lady gave them some directions, the Koreans left the office and she saw me again.
I very patiently, but firmly, told her that I had been downstairs and the guy had sent me back upstairs. I made a pointed effort to let her know that the guy had written her a note. She saw the note and sent me to one more lady to get the issue sorted. This lady looked at my form and she was like, "how can the commercial office simply change a purchase to a rental after you've purchased something? they're making our life miserable." I waited while my file was brought upstairs and the new lady and the old lady both had a meeting while I stood and listened. The old lady explained, "see normally you can't change a purchase to a rental, but since this was their mistake in the first place, the commercial office changed it." So finally, the new lady comes out of the conference and tells me, "Ok, we'll get this done. We'll keep this copy of your bill. You can collect an updated bill next week." It reminded me of a Dilbert strip where the HR person asks Dilbert to give him "the original + all copies of a document" while Dogbert screams, "don't do it! he'll lose it." (or something to this effect, anyway).
So where am I? Well, I still don't know that my account has been fixed and I may very well need to make *another* trip to the commercial office next week, but ... let's wait and see.
If you don't read anything in this post thoroughly, make sure you record the fact that I was actually asked, "haven't you ever been to a government office before?" There are so many things wrong with the statement, not the least that I should expect inefficiency and kow-tow to their egos.
posted by Vivek at 10:13 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home