BSNL receives around 45,000 consumer complaints a month

The complaints are received not only at Complaint Grievance Redressal Cell (CGRC) of the telecom company in Pune,but also online,designated customer care centres and automatic complaint registration centres. Besides breakdown of services and non-availability of cellphone networks in some areas,the complaints are about issues like delay in shifting of landline from one place to another and faulty instruments.

On an average,the CGRC alone receives 4,000 complaints in a month,including those filed by people at the BSNL portals managed from the Maharashtra and Delhi offices of the company. Complaints pertaining to Pune jurisdiction are routed to the grievance redressal cell here. BSNL officials said the large complaints is due to the copper line faults owing to “frequent digging of roads by various state government departments”. General manager,BSNL,Arvind Vadnerkar,said many a time,cable faults take longer to be rectified “due to the delay in permission by corporations”.

Sub-divisional engineer,Public Grievance Cell,K D Deshmukh,said the field officers concerned are being asked to repair the faults at the earliest. He added that BSNL has a “very efficent” complaint redressal system. “People can register complaints at the centres in Pune,the automatic complaint reporting centre,or online. We are also receiving written complaints at the CGRC,which are being addressed at the earliest. The field officers manning the telephone exchanges and officers in the rank of divisional engineers,sub-divisional engineers and junior telecom officers are being urged to dispose of the complaints at the earliest.”

Deshmukh said those who register complaints online are also updated about the status. However,officials said in some cases,faults remain unresolved as long as five months. Due to the time taken for repairs,some of the areas are being treated as “non-feasible”,they said.