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Originally Posted by meerkat Scared, I undid what I had done to get my phone working, -- but I was not going to grease any palms (this attitude has made many things very difficult for me in India all my life, but I can honestly hold my head high,) -- to myself! |
"...Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake...."
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Originally Posted by meerkat Finally, a full 3 months after application for the shift and fee payment, BSNL gave up, and completed the job without bribes! I didn't really have to go through much hardship for the lack of a phone at home, because I was living alone, and spent most of my waking hours at work. |
A similar incident happened with me more than a decade back. I joined a bank in a rural area in Maharashtra. I started living in the village itself instead of the nearest city which was approx 50Kms away to save time and energy. The per month rent of the nice house that I surprisingly got in that area was peanuts too. The great quality milk and the fresh air were a blessing in disguise.
The first thing that I got was a broadband connection from BSNL. The village now had 3 broadband connections, one was the
gram panchayat's, one was mine and the other was the leased line from BSNL for the bank's branch.
I started living in the house only when the broadband became functional, which took only 2 days, before which I spent time in the nearest city's hotel. It was a Monday.
I couldn't have asked for more, given that I loved the work, the surrounding atmosphere, people and the milk and the broadband by BSNL that worked like a charm. The house was fantastic too, called a bungalow in local parlance.
The fun was interrupted as soon as the weekend arrived. The broadband stopped working when I woke up Saturday morning. I tried to find the mobile numbers of people concerned but no help was rendered it being a weekend. 2 days of the weekend I felt like meditating as the mobile connectivity of the Idea SIM too that I had was quite limited. Nothing much to do except sip tea and read a book for 2 days. Monday morning the broadband started working again and I thanked all the BSNL people I had phoned last Saturday and Sunday. However, this became a thing every weekend. I noticed that the broadband would stop working every Friday late evening and it would start every Monday morning. BSNL guys gave me all sorts of excuses which could or could not be true. The nearest BSNL exchange was in the taluka which was approx 22 Kms away. Exhausted, I took out time from the bank one weekday and visited the exchange. They made me run pillar to post to try and make me understand that BSNL is not at fault and there is some strange reason for this mishap every weekend.
I visited them once more the following week but no help or resolution to the problem was rendered. Even emails to the higher ups through the BSNL website went useless.
I called a friend who worked at DOT in Delhi and he simply advised me to register a complaint on the CPGRAMS portal.
I did that and he told me to wait 45 days. 15 days or so passed and one morning a Tata Sumo filled with 6-7 BSNL people arrived and met me at the bank itself. They profusely apologised and requested me never to escalate the complaints to the higher ups. I don't remember what the top most personnel of a BSNL exchange is called, but he personally met me and made me promise never to escalate the issues so much because they have to answer a lot afterwards and shared his personal mobile number so that any future issues can be personally taken up by him.
For the problem, they told me in the evening that they worked the whole day and have sorted it out and I would never face any problems with connectivity again. I took it with a pinch of salt but indeed the problem was sorted out, whatever it was, the BSNL broadband started working flawlessly day in and day out.
I being a curious person could not digest that there was some technical issue which the team that visited before had sorted and believed that the issue was something else. I was right. One day I saw the BSNL employee of the village perched high up a pole. I called him out and tried to talk to him. His name was Jarli. He belonged to a nearby village of the same name. Jarli was a little drunk and was speaking very nicely. He said he knew I worked in the bank and asked me if I faced any problems with the broadband again. I told him that a team had visited and they had sorted out a technical issue. He smiled, apologised and told me that there was no technical issue and it was Jarli's fault that I had faced conncetivity issues on weekends.
Mr Jarli was a celebrated govt employee who had no to very less work at hand. He had a bike to commute daily to my village from his. My village had its own very small but fully equipped BSNL exchange. Jarli was the only employee there and was the top boss therefore. Mr Jarli had the habit of taking full weekends off and before leaving his work every Friday evening, he used to turn the electricity supply off to 'avert' any untoward issues over the weekends so that he can enjoy his weekends with pleasure at home.
The team had got to know this when they had made the visit previously and the top boss from the nearby
taluka's BSNL exchange told him to not enjoy his weekends so much, lest he wanted more such complaints from my side.
So Mr. Jarli stopped doing what he used to do earlier and I got uninterrupted, superb BSNL broadband service for the rest of the tenure that I spent in that beautiful village. The village exchange was equipped with a DG set which was a backup in case of hydel power cut. Along with the DG set were a number of UPS. I faced zilch issues after this was taken care of.
Mr Jarli became a good friend and used to visit my branch for occasional tea in the afternoons.
When we installed a Hughes VSAT for our ATM that we shifted from inside the branch to outside later on, Mr Jarli went out of his way to help us out in every which way possible to get the job done in one day, though, being a BSNL employee he had no obligation whatsoever to help out.
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Originally Posted by meerkat ---- My American MNC had to maintain a separate department staffed with local people to keep things running "smoothly" with various government departments in Bangalore! I have no idea how the necessary grease money was acounted for in the company books! All I know is that the US staff in the know used to laugh about this additional cost of doing business in India, and that made me feel very proud as an Indian!
The top people of this special department earned much more than us poor engineers, and used to flaunt their costly house and such too (that we couldn't even dream of buying ourselves)! |
Sir this is quite common throughout the country. PR department people need to maintain friendly relations with local authorities including the police to keep the ball rolling for the company. It is no mean feat for the said department's employees too. Greasing of palms gets the work done for private players, is no hidden truth. However sad it might sound. Corporates take care in cash and kind of the so called govt people, keeping them entertained through any means possible. Using companies' guest houses for a VIP at the request of a local authority is an example. In lieu, the company gets to function flawlessly and gets help when it gets rough in any matter. It is what it is.