[Desmosedici]

Originally Posted by Mohan Mathew A

your thought is quite natural. a couple of days back i was reading about BMC leaking info about activists who have complained. this is not to dissuade anyone from complaining, i think we all should but at the same time be aware of the possible dirty games the affected parties might play

Thanks Mohan. I too read the news and have held myself back from registering a complaint. The only way to get things done in our country is through political pressure i guess, else as ordinary citizens, we cant do much. I still remember how the Toll on the Aarey Road was stopped for around 2 - 3 months by a political party and only after some patches were re-layered was the toll started. This was in 2011 i think.

[naveenroy]

Guys - yesterday me and some friends went to a brew pub. The bill had this figment of the imagination - "Service Charges". We refused to pay it and after some arguing, the manager gave in and removed it off the bill. I know it is illegal for them to be asking us to pay this charge - it is not something that the government makes them pay!

Would this be the right portal to ask a question about this?

[Mudhalaipatti]

One more story. Success story or not, I'll let you decide.

My summary in the portal should give a fair idea of what prompted my complaint.



The complaint was raised on 26-Apr and the twist happens on 2-May.
I'm away on a long vacation and my landlord is visited by this BSNL lineman. I'm listing what I could gather from the conversation I had with my landlord last evening, as soon as I returned to unlock my door.

On 30-Apr, this BSNL lineman was given a chargesheet for indulging in corrupt practices and asked to explain his side of the story. Since the complaint was forward from Ministry of Telecommunications, South GM BSNL is monitoring the complaint and is updated on a daily basis. The lineman has 32 years of experience and is due to retire in the next 4 years. The digging cost is something that has to be incurred by the applicant, as the junction box is a little further away from the home, on the other side of the road. Also he's not getting any share of this 1000, that's given to the laborers.

Apparently he's in a soup, because there's a commercial establishment nearby that doesn't fall under this TE jurisdiction, but managed to grease some palms and got connection from this junction box, which is intended for home users on this street. So effectively he/BSNL can't deny me the connection, which would prove their malpractice, done earlier. They apparently can't ask for Rs.1000 from BSNL as well, for the above mentioned reason and so he had asked me to pay the Rs.1000.

He had apparently profusely requested my landlord to speak to me when I return and asked me if I could speak to the GM/AGM and tone down my complaint so that a memo is not served and this doesn't go in to his service record. If it does, his pension, retirement benefits would be withheld pending an internal inquiry. He can't afford this at this age.

My landlord being a sensible man, asked this lineman as to what good my conversation with the GM/AGM would have, as he has already been served a charge sheet and an inquiry is on and he's anyway not getting a smooth retirement.

For this the lineman mentioned something that, these sort of complaints are tracked not just by GM south, but my the ministry with some amount discretionary powers to GM/AGM and if I would please be considerate, the GM/AGM might intervene and give 'subsidy' on the punitive action.

I'm yet to speak to this lineman/supervisor, but the two instances I did speak to him, during the course of the feasibility check, he was indeed haughty. He didn't sound as if it's his work to give connection, but my luck if, even if I pay. 'Give the money or leave it'. This is the exact the line he told me, the other day.

I couldn't take that from a government employee whose primary job is to service customer requests. The tipping point was his second visit to my home, when my in-laws were there and complained to them, that I was being insensible, by asking questions on the money to be spent, to get a new connection. ‘That’s how it works here’ – is what he told.

There are only two ways to this and either way, it may not a happy ending for him. Would like to hear from our BHPians on the course of action.

Option 1 - Speak to the lineman, comfort him that it's ok. Speak to the GM/AGM to explore possibilities of withdrawing the complaint or toning down the accusation. In the process pay Rs.1000 and get the connection.
Option 2 - Stick to my ground that it was not his birth right to demand bribe and it is not my duty to cover up his earlier goof ups. I'll not relent until I get a new connection. You pay from your own pocket or not. I don't care. I'm not paying a single paisa and I want that BB connection.

We Indians can be scared easily and pacified more easily. We are born brave, brought up brashly and end up being empathetic to tear drops. (Married Men - Oh yeah. Tell me more). Nothing wrong in it, you see. That defines US. Our identity.

Anyway, let's hear from you learned, wise men and women out there. (btw do we have women in our forum)

[CRV2010]

Thanks to pgportal.

I had a Reliance Wimax Broadband Connection for last 2 years and finally moved to BSNL Broadband one fine day and got the Reliance connected disconnected. My connection was a prepaid connection and I had paid for next two months in advance. They took nearly one month to disconnect the service and still I had one month's payment credit with them.

Though initially when i disconnected the service I was asked to wait for 45 business days for the refund. Even after six months i never received any refund from the Reliance Communications and I started calling their customer service and emailing the billing help desk but every time i raised a issue it was closed the very next day with the message "Refund cannot be made". I was struggling to get refund of excess payment of Rs. 1500 made to Reliance Communications for the broadband connection.

Saw this thread and made a complaint at pgportal.gov.in and later forgot about it. I had just received a SMS from pgportal about my complaint.

Finally one fine day after some 25 days I received a call from Reliance saying they have received my complaint through DOT and the refund cheque will be mailed to me in next 2 business days. Got the Refund after 2 days through courier.

[an_and]

Well, transparency or not, this portal is a definite welcome relief for us. I have just posted a complaint on the EPF website. I shall keep this site updated on how my issue turns out to be.

[noopster]

Another success story

My BSNL broadband had been giving trouble since November. Repeated complaints were not doing the trick so I took brother moralfibre's advice and complained on pgportal.

The result:


The missus says the guys who finally came and fixed the issue (a minor wiring fix) were so scared they refused to leave till the exchange manager had confirmed that the line was working perfectly!

God bless PGportal!

[aargee]

Two of my last complaints with Airtel has been closed by PgPortal stating that Airtel was not responding & they asked me to approach the court & get it settled through there.

[comfortablynumb]

Originally Posted by noopster

Another success story !

Like the lazy bum that I am, I am going to copy your complaint as it is for registering a grievance and replace broadband with "BSNL landline". Thank you!

Cheers,
Vikram

[racer_m]

Originally Posted by aargee

Two of my last complaints with Airtel has been closed by PgPortal stating that Airtel was not responding & they asked me to approach the court & get it settled through there.

You are fortunate that they even took up your complaint and tried contacting Airtel (which is not under their purview) and gave a suggestion also.

If you read, it clearly mentions on the site:

"Public Grievances pertaining to identified issues in respect of 20 Central Government Organisations (for list click here) are being handled by Directorate of Public Grievances (DPG), Cabinet Secretariat. If your Grievance falls under the purview of Directorate of Public Grievances, Cabinet Secretariat, please click here to lodge your Grievance."

[noopster]

Originally Posted by comfortablynumb

Like the lazy bum that I am, I am going to copy your complaint as it is for registering a grievance and replace broadband with "BSNL landline". Thank you!

All the best. Since BSNL is a government department I guess it is easier for them to enforce than say Airtel or any other private agency (though from GTO's and others' experiences narrated here, it seems it helps even in those cases).

Please overlook the whiny tone in my complaint- I deliberately used that (plus language I otherwise cringe to use) because the person it would get assigned to would be I assumed a typical bureaucrat!

[RaguHolla]

Originally Posted by racer_m

You are fortunate that they even took up your complaint and tried contacting Airtel (which is not under their purview) and gave a suggestion also.

This is not correct. You can approach PG portal as as per TRAI policy. All service providers are supposed to abide by two tier system for addressing their grievance (one complaint cell, another Nodal office).

If two-tier system fails, you can approach DOT cell (in writing) or phone or PG portal (as Nodal comes under public service!). The last option is court, which basically has to enforce the penalty as Airtel failed to address the issue! You can read grievance mechanism applies to Telecom here.

I am surprised to find Airtel not heeding to PG portal. In my case, I asked relocation of Broadband, which they couldn't. Then they didn't cancel the line and generated the bill (which was not used). I asked for refund of security deposit and compensation for harassment. As usual Appellate authority tried to mislead me.

Approached PG portal, with copies of replies from Appellate mails. Two days after filing complaint, person from Airtel Appellate was in front of my house with DD at morning 08:00 on Sunday!

I constantly use PG Portal, May it be Telecom (Airtel, BSNL and Vodafone), HP Gas (Thanks to PG Portal, I am now a VIP customer in their records! LOL!), DTH and Cable operator (Hathway, Citycable and Tatasky), Banks (HSBC, Citibank and Axis bank), Railways, KSRTC (for non-refund of online booking).

Each and every case addressed effectively.

[aargee]

Hopefully this was done

[shashank.nk]

Another good experience with Pgportal. My broadband connection had problems for the last 3 months,in November they identified it as a cable fault and assured to get it rectified. As is usual, they didn't bother and simply closed the complaint repairing it to ensure internet worked even if intermittently.
This month the line went dead completely and I wasn't able to use my landline either. I raised 3 complaints and all were closed without a call or visit. So I raised a 4th complaint and when there was no attempt made by BSNL to solve the issue,decided to escalate.
I put my grievance up last night around 9 pm. Today got a call from home around 12.30 confirming tge landline was fixed and internet was working too.

What wasn't done in 2 months was fixed in around 15 hours of raising the issue!

[FarPatel]

GTO, thanks for this thread which I just chanced upon a couple of days ago. Since I have been getting ever more incensed over the deteriorating traffic conditions here in Mumbai I thought of trying my luck with this portal. My grievance is linked here. Lets see what happens.
Edit: For some reason my pdf isn't opening, so I've converted it to a jpg. Hope it goes through.

[devil_klm]

I got my parking entry covered by PWD's Drainage cleaning and new slab laying process. They did it only in front of my apartment and no one else is affected. Not sure the reason behind. Can these type of complaints be addressed by PGPortal?