|
Bhaskar Hazarika
NEW DELHI: The delay in installation of a proper billing system has hit Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s (BSNL) plans to expand its reach in the Eastern and the Western parts of the country.
The company had given a billing instrument contract to ITI, which was sub-contracted to a consortium headed by Wipro Infotech. The consortium included Sun Microsystems and Cisco Systems, which were to provide hardware and networking equipment respectively to ITI.
Sources close to the deal revealed that Wipro was slated to be the systems integrator according to this contract. The contract was granted in September 2005.
A top BSNL official, who requested anonymity, confirmed the contact. The official said that the order was placed by BSNL with ITI on the basis of the reserved category but was delayed.
“The installation of the system was to be completed by March 31 which was delayed due to late distribution of contracts by ITI. BSNL has floated the contact within the time frame announced but the delay in distribution has created the mess,” he said.
Sources said that the company wants to follow standard practices in both rural and urban areas and is concentrating on customer satisfaction. “We are planning to change the entire billing system to make it convenient for the subscribers. The growing subscriber base across various segments like landline, mobile and Internet requires high-end software system and we are expecting this renovation will help us to serve our customers better,” the source added.
He said that BSNL is keen on launching the e-billing solution for the consumers to end the billing controversies. Through the e-billing subscribers can do virtually anything from changing tariff plan, subscribing to a new service by making a request, and lodge a complaint, all by pressing few buttons.
Meanwhile, dealing with the billing system of BSNL has turned to be bitter experience for many of its subscribers. Anirban Sen from Orissa said that he had the worst experience with CellOne post paid connection.
“I had a CellOne post paid connection and last month I received a bill of Rs. 600, for signing up for OneIndia plan, which I had never opted for. When I complained about the bill they told me that I had signed up for OneIndia plan. Even the customer service was horrible,” Sen said.
This is one such instance where the customers faced faulty billing. According to reports from the redressal forum, Guwahati (North- East), almost 60 per cent of the users in the region have billing problem from the BSNL landline and the post paid mobile connection.
Even though AK Sinha, chairman and managing director, BSNL, was unavailable for comments, official sources admitted that there have been instances of faulty billing in post-paid connections.
The BSNL source said that after BSNL had launched a number of plans to meet the competition from the private players, who has come up with offers every alternate day, BSNL had faced the problems with the billing.
Pravin Singh, a CellOne subscriber in Chandigarh, said that he had received a bill amounting Rs. 1000, showing outstanding amount of Rs 600 of the previous bill, which he had paid before the due date.
“It was a bad experience for me. It took me three days to get the bill corrected after showing the receipt of the previous bill paid. There are many such complaints from the subscribers here. The customer service is also poor here,” Singh added.
|
