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At the beginning of this calendar year, BSNL owed Rs 5,488 crore to subscribers and private operators. Moreover, BSNL lost almost 4.4 mn landline customers in 2007-08, while sister concern MTNL lost a little over 200,000 connections. At a time when the telecom ministry of the Government of India, as well as its two services arms (BSNL and MTNL), claims that broadband is the national focus, there seems to be something seriously wrong somewhere.

The reasons cited by BSNL for the two challenges they are facing are customary-consumers do not pay bills on time, they change their premises, and move to other private operators. The above may be true but there is enough feedback to prove that a lot of landline customers have disconnected and not paid primarily because of poor service than anything else.

The biggest problem that I see with this is its implementation on the ground. All the circles will be asked to engage local recovery agents. We are all aware of the horror stories about the tactics many recovery agents have used in recovering card loans and credit card payments, and that too in big cities and metros. How is this going to be handled and managed in small towns is anybody's guess. While the strategy should be to try and get these users back, I hope the use of recovery agent toughies does not result in losing customers forever.

Ibrahim Ahamad

Therefore, the recent decision of BSNL, which is grappling with massive losses, to take the services of private recovery agents on commission basis might complicate matters further, rather than proving to be of some help.

My understanding is that the number of people who want the Internet, especially broadband, is increasing manifold. These include students, small entrepreneurs, homes, e-government kiosks in small towns and villages, among many others. I am sure BSNL and MTNL can figure out some offer to hold back those customers who want to move away to other technologies or operators.

It will be really unfortunate if the incumbent operators, BSNL and MTNL, let this golden opportunity slip from under them. Not only will this affect their financial performance and goodwill, the country's broadband target will get affected. Remember that even now BSNL and MTNL are sitting on almost 35 mn landline connections across the country.

One hopes that the new telecom minister of state, Jyotiraditya Scindia, who might be new to telecom but surely understands the significance of customer service in a fiercely competitive market, will play a significant role in convincing these operators to very sensitively handle customer outstandings, and focus more on enhancing service levels.

Obviously, to facilitate all this, the government will have to go out of the way to support the management in quickly taking technology decisions and procure the required equipment for faster network upgradation and rollout. I strongly urge that all efforts must go in recovering customers first; outstanding dues will be more than compensated for.

Ibrahim Ahamad
ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in