BSNL deputes staff retired 4 years ago to handle Chennai customer's complaint

CHENNAI: In a bizarre turn of events, a resident of Avadi who registered a complaint with BSNL for a faulty telephone connection was directed to an employee for redressal, who had retired four years ago.

Dwarakanath V, a resident of Thiruninravur in Avadi had issues with his BSNL landline connection around 15 days ago. He complained to the BSNL customer care through the official WhatsApp number. He got a message that the complaint booked had been assigned to a BSNL staff and was shared a number to which the complainant can reach.

Dwarakanath was shattered when he contacted the number provided by BSNL as the person assigned to attend to his grievance had retired four years ago. Not only that, the complaint stands unresolved to date. The negligence by the public entity isn’t a one-alone incident as many other customers too share similar or other sorts of issues in service.

“In many cases, a complaint raised is closed in 56 hours automatically without getting it resolved. Another issue is that we are not familiar with the field staff who come for the work whether they are a BSNL employee or are contractual staff, which raises security concerns”, said T Sadagopan, a BSNL customer and consumer activist.

When contacted, a senior official attached to BSNL said, “the issue faced by Dwarakanath doesn’t happen generally. It might have occurred due to a system error. We would look into it.”