Customer care services of the public sector telecom giant Bharat Sanchar Nigam ltd (BSNl) have been adversely affected due to sudden wrapping up of operations by a Mumbai-based private company to which the operations were outsourced earlier.
Currently any call made at BSNl mobile customer care no 1503 is being handled by the customer care unit of BSNl’s landline services with barely 25 personnel to respond the calls. Thus, most of the BSNl customers in need of help have to wait as their calls are held up due to high traffic.
BSNl Bhopal circle general manager BN Sanwal disclosed that Spanco ltd had stopped customer care operations four days back without any prior notice. “At present we have made arrangements to divert the customer care calls to the unit handling operations for landline services. But another company will be roped in soon to resume normal operations,” he told.
Sanwal further informed that BSNl had entered into a three-year contract with the company in May 2011 for maintaining the customer care operations for BSNl western circle. The company has abruptly defaulted from its contractual obligation nearly 10 months before the contract period.
Sanwal said a show-cause notice has already been dispatched to the company demanding an explanation within seven days. “In case the company fails to come up with a satisfactory explanation we will take action against it. This includes black listing it for future business dealings and also forfeiture of all outstanding dues that BSNl had to pay to it,” he said.
The reasons behind the sudden halting of operations by Spanco ltd are not yet clear. Repeated attempts to contact by this correspondent at its Mumbai-based corporate office have failed to produce any result so far. Incredibly, the Spanco ltd, which was handling the BSNl customer care services, passed its operation to another company named Sai Infosystem (India) ltd which is based in Ahmadabad.
Sanwal informed that it was the internal arrangement of Spanco ltd as to how it handled its operations. “We are dealing with Spanco ltd with which BSNl has the contract,” he said. Another unconfirmed sources informed that the customer operations have been halted by Sai Infosystem (India) ltd as its bank accounts have been sealed off by authorities due to some financial irregularities. However, the telephone numbers of Infosystem (India) ltd did not respond even after repeated attempts.
A BSNl employee remarked, on condition of anonymity, that several senior officers from the government telecom companies are at senior positions in these two private firms which have deep business links with BSNl and other public sector companies.