Bhopal: Customers experience poor mgmt at BSNL customer service centre

Bhopal: Customers experience poor mgmt at BSNL customer service centre
FPJ03 Aug. 07:50

Bhopal: ‘Santritipti’ (Sanskrit for satiation or fulfilment) is the name of the BSNL’s customer service centre at New Market. But the BSNL cell phone subscribers, visiting the centre for getting their mobile numbers linked with Aadhar for the compulsory e-KYC, are hardly walking out with any feeling of fulfilment.

Be armed with tons of patience and have at least two hours in hand, if you want to get this work done. It may even take longer if your Aadhar card carries an address of another state. Poor management and untrained staff are the main culprits.

"I was surprised to see the poor management. I reached the centre at 2.30 pm to get my mobile number linked with Aadhar. There was already a queue. I joined it and asked the operator manning the counter what documents would be needed. He said just phone and Aadhar numbers," said Supriya Verma (name changed), who works in a private firm.

"After half-an-hour, I asked how much time it will take and I was told, normally it takes about 10 minutes but it may take longer as the server is slow. After one hour when my turn came, I was told that my number can’t be linked because my Aadhar card carries an address of another state. It will be linked using an android phone but the phone was discharged and it will take time to charge it. Finally, my work was done at 4 pm and that too after I complained to a senior official," she said, adding , "The same thing happened with another person whose Aadhar card was of Maharashtra."

"This is not my job. Basically, my work is to issue SIM cards to customers. Such a case has come before me for the first time and we are not trained for this. The phone is discharged. So what can be done? It is not my fault," one of the staffers told Verma.

"We have three android phones for the work. But two out of three are connected with computer and one is discharged. So, you will have to wait until it gets charged. We have no option except it," Anshul, who is monitoring the technical work, told Verma curtly.

Another customer, Ravi Desai (name changed) a government employee said, "After waiting in the queue for an hour, I was informed that server was down. I had come here in my lunch time hoping that it won’t take more than a couple of minutes but here I am waiting for over two hours now."