Team Herald
MARGAO: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) customers from Margao were a harassed lot this week as BSNL failed to reconnect telephone lines that were disconnected due to non-payment of bills, even after assuring that it would be done within a matter of hours.
The telephone line of a company dealing with mutual funds was apparently disconnected because they had failed to pay, not the telephone bill, but the late fees charged to them. Initially nobody realised that the telephone was disconnected, as the bill was paid.
The company owners first got the telephone department officials to check the line thinking that something may have gone wrong with the connection due to the rainfall. However, as no fault was found with the line, they were advised to change the modem, believing that the modem was giving a problem.
However, as the company could not connect to the internet even after changing the modem, it was discovered that the late fees were not paid and the same was paid on July 17, when they were assured that the internet would be connected.
However, even on July 18 evening the internet was not connected and a harassed employee of the company was seen shouting at the staff for not rectifying the error and causing huge losses to the company.
Similarly a citizen from Sirvodem realised that his telephone was disconnected for non-payment of bill and accordingly paid the bill on July 17 morning and was told that the telephone would be connected within half an hour.
However, the telephone was not re-connected and he visited the accounts office in the evening, where he was told that the work was in progress and his telephone was re-connected only after 10 pm, which was nearly 12 hours after the bill was paid.
Although the telephone was reconnected, he could not get connected to internet and when he visited the accounts section the staff told him that since his telephone was already connected, he would get the internet connection also, but after some time.
Staff at the office was seen being harassed by various people who had the same complaint that despite paying bills their telephones were not connected even after a day and the staff was heard telling the people that the whole problem had started since the disconnection and reconnection section was shifted to the regional office at Pune.
“If it was with us in Goa here, we would have been able to do the reconnection within no time, but it is now shifted to Pune and that is causing a problem,” they said.
Deputy General Manager S B Akiwat admitted that there was some problem with the server in Pune, due to which quite a few people had the problem and further said that with the exception of two all other problems were resolved.
