From Jehangir Rashid SRINAGAR, Jan 9: The mobile users in the valley continue to suffer at the hands of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), as the limited number of counters make people wait for hours altogether before they could pay their bills.
There are total six counters at the central telecom office at Lal Chowk for the receipt of the telephone bills.
Out of six counters three are for the payment of the mobile bills and three are for the payment of the landline bills.
This has resulted in overwhelming rush of the telephone subscribers on this important exchange of the valley.
One fails to understand the policy of the BSNL authorities who have ordered the mobile users to pay their bills only at the counters of the central telecom office at Lal Chowk.
The scene at the central telecom office suggests that there is a festival going on due to the extraordinary rush of the mobile bill payees.
It is ironical that telephone exchanges situated at Hariparbat, Sanat Nagar and Bemina have been left virtually with no business as far as the payment of the mobile bills is concerned.
The mobile users falling under these exchanges have been left with no other alternative, but to deposit their bills at the central telecom office.
This has led to the early arrival of the people at the BSNL central exchange at Lal Chowk.
People coming from every nook and corner of the city throng the central telecom office at Lal Chowk.
People have to waste hours altogether by standing in the long queues for hours altogether so that they could deposit their bill.
"It is quite ridiculous that I had to deposit my bill here, even if we have an exchange located in our vicinity at Sanat Nagar" said one of the mobile users who had to come all the way from Rawalpora and had to wait for three hours before depositing his bill.
The people waiting for their turn have to fear for their life as the intensified security operations in the view of the republic day celebrations.
There have already been few grenade attacks on the telephone exchange in presence of the people which has resulted in death to some of the persons.
The un-precedented rush of the people is also due to the reason that the last date for depositing the mobile bills is January 12, which has forced mobile users to forego all their other preferences and deposit the mobile bill in the first instance.
This whole scenario has led to the chaos and confusion among the mobile users who have already suffered a lot at the hands of the BSNL.
The mobile users have yet another grievance against the BSNL authorities which is in the form of the issuance of the mobile bills.
They say that the bills were issued to them only after four months thereby increasing the burden on them.
"It is better that we receive bills on monthly basis.
It will reduce our burden, which we have to overcome when paying an handsome amount in the form of rent and call charges from our mobiles for three or four months altogether" said a mobile subscriber.
Furthermore, some of the mobile subscribers argue that although they had opted for one plan while filling up the forms, but the irony is that they have been allotted some other plan.
"I had opted for 225 plan, but the BSNL people have according to their own wishes placed me under 525 plan" said a senior journalist.
There is yet another dimension to this whole scenario as there is no mention of the surcharge which will be received from the subscribers who are not able to deposit their bills on or before the due date.
This is also one of the important reasons for the un-precedented rush at the central telecom office at Lal Chowk.
People belonging to the other districts of the Kashmir valley are somewhat confused in this situation as they say if this is the situation of the mobile business in the Srinagar district, then they cannot expect better treatment at the hands of the BSNL people.
