Faulty lines ring BSNL death knell

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as BSNL tries to give sops to prevent attrition of customers from landline connections, a whopping 52,200 landlines out of around 23.04 lakh connections reported faults on Friday.

Out of over two lakh connection that are ended annually, a big section now prefers mobile phones primarily due to dead phones and lack of clarity in service. Most faults were reported from Kottayam (8032), Ernakulam (6884), Kozhikode (6670) and Thiruvananthapuram (5316).

Though as per officials, only around 220 lines have remained faulty for over a one-month period, as per activists there is clear manipulation of complaint registry.

“Dead phones of many customers have not been rectified even up to around one year. Several times when we file a complaint on helpline number 198, the fault is not rectified. However, when we call after a week or two later, it is registered as a new complaint. On inquiry, we were told by a section of employees that the complaints are marked rectified to prevent wrath from the top brass,” said Kerala Telephone Users Association general secretary Vizhinjam Vijayan.

“Customers these days won't sit and lament about faulty service but directly end their association with BSNL,” he added.

In 2008, there were around 40 lakh landline connections in the state which has a population of just 3.4 crore. However, the connections dropped to just around 23 lakh in 2013. It was recently that the government announced plans to provide free phone calls on BSNL landline from 9 pm to 7 am. This has not helped much in plugging the loss of customers in Kerala where 3.46 lakh connections were ended in 2014 as against 2.36 in 2013.

Officials say that though these disconnections are compensated by an annual increase in mobile connections, a big chunk of customers in Kerala gets divided among private service providers also.