Ranchi, June 13: The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) seems to have learnt only to make promises, not to fulfil them.
The telecom utility company made several announcements regarding various facilities in the last few months but most of them have not been realised. Every time it comes with a new explanation to justify the delay.
The BSNL announced to dole out 88,000 ExCel connections, its pre-paid cellular phone service, across the state by April. Three months have passed, it is yet to begin distribution of the SIM cards.
It had also promised to provide additional 2.5 lakh connections by July. But given the pace of the work, it seems hardly impossible to achieve the target. The BSNL had invited fresh applications last August for pre-paid connections. There are over 2 lakh applicants in the waiting list.
In 2003, the Ranchi Telecom had announced opening of online counters for payment of telephone bills and also availing of the duplicate bills at five telephone exchanges. But the service has not become operational even now due to dilly-dallying approach of the officials.
The IVRS (inter-active voice response system)-based round-the-clock services for fault booking and basic phone bill enquiry are yet to take off. Similarly, the basic phone bill fax back and payment reminder services have also not become operational till now.
BSNL chief general manager (CGM), Jharkhand circle, Mahendra Kumar said the distribution of pre-paid connections has been delayed as work is still in progress.
?The equipment required to provide new connections reached here late and therefore we are not able to provide connections,? Kumar added. Asked when the BSNL would be able to provide the pre-paid connections, Kumar said he was not in a position to give the exact date.
On the delay in start of the other services announced by the Ranchi Telecom, the CGM said he was not aware of them. However, officials of the Ranchi Telecom said the services have been delayed because of technical hurdles. Ranchi Telecom general manager S.N. Singh could not be contacted.
Not only the various facilities and schemes announced by the BSNL are gathering dust thanks to the official negligence, the subscribers of its cellular services are having harrowing time because of snag in the network.
?It?s really difficult to send SMS. Not only this, my friends and relatives complain that it takes a lot of time to reach me. I repent having subscribed to BSNL,? said Rakesh Sharma, a BSNL ExCel subscriber. Officials, however, attribute this to ?congestion?.
Many schemes launched by the BSNL headquarters are of no avail. For example, the ?Student Power? and ?Friend Family? schemes, which were launched with much fanfare in 2003, are not being made available to the subscribers.
Amit Kumar, who have been meeting the officials for availing ?Friend Family? scheme said: ?I met many of them but I was told the scheme has been suspended.?
Take the case of Rishabh Kumar, a student, who wanted BSNL?s post-paid CellOne connection under the ?Student Power? scheme, under which the connection is given to students at a charge of Rs 99. ?When I approached the BSNL office I was flatly told that the scheme has been put on hold,? he complained.
