Hi All: I agree that the phone service at Saligao is in a poor state. Probably that's true elsewhere in the state too, more so in non-urban areas. This gets worse in the monsoons, when the BSNL seems to be unable to cope. Last week, my phone was dead for four days, and I couldn't even get out an email. This was terrible for me as a journalist.
In addition to this issue, I think another one -- raised earlier -- is about the tariff that Saligaokars are getting charged. We are being treated as an *urban* area, and get services of rural areas or worse! Last time the issue was raised on this fora, it was dismissed with the argument that the number of phone-subscribers has grown in Saligao. It is not so simple an issue, as the posts below will show. Thanks to the Net, it is now much easier to locate such information. At Rs 250 rental per month, we seem to be paying at the highest rates chargeable for urban exchanges. Entire Goa has around 100,000 phones... so it's hard to understand why Saligao exchange alone is being charged as if it has so many phones. To argue that the 'Saligao Exchange' is "parented" to Panjim exchange is a joke! Rgds, FN - - - - http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/bline/2003/01/02/stories/2003010201710700.htm BSNL billing mix-up makes rural users pay more G. Rambabu NEW DELHI, Jan. 1 TELECOM behemoth Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) seems to have mixed up the rural and urban areas in the country. Over the past couple of months the company has been inundated with complaints from rural subscribers across the country that they are being charged urban tariffs rates, which are between 15 to 55 per cent higher than what they ought to pay. As per the BSNL tariff structure, subscribers in rural areas have to pay monthly rentals, varying from Rs 50 per month to Rs 210 per month, while urban subscribers have to pay between Rs 120 and Rs 250 per month depending on the exchange system capacity. The number of free calls and call charges also vary between the two population groups. For an exchange capacity of less then 1,000 lines, the rural BSNL subscribers are charged rental of Rs 50, while the urban customer has to pay Rs 120. For exchange system capacity between 1,000 and 30,000 lines the rentals are Rs 110 for rural areas and Rs 120 for urban subscribers. Between 30,000 and one lakh lines, the rentals are Rs 150 and Rs 180 respectively while for more than one lakh line capacity the rental is Rs 210 and Rs 250 per month. What is more the rural subscriber is entitled to 125 free calls per month, while the urban subscriber is entitled to only 75 free calls. The call charge for the rural subscriber varies from 60 paise to 1.20 paise for every metered call of three minutes, while for the urban areas it varies from 80 paise to Rs 1.20. Many subscribers, despite officially being in the rural areas, are being billed at the urban rates due to some large-scale mixup, it appears. According to BSNL officials, the problem arose because of the differences in classification of the urban and rural areas as per the 1991 Census and the 2001 census. Until May 2002, BSNL utilised the 1991 Census for its classification purpose and since then has shifted to the more recent census figures. Since there have been instances where the classification of an area might have changed from rural to urban and vice versa in the Census Report 2001 compared to the previous report, these discrepancies in billing have arisen, they said. Following the complaints, circulars have been issued to all the circle offices of the company to rectify the mistakes, if any. ``It is clarified that the rural tariff is to be charged from subscribers whose phones are located in areas identified as rural by the Registrar of Census. Similarly urban tariff is to be charged from the subscribers in respect of telephones located in urban areas. The Chief General Managers (CGM) may procure copies of the list of rural areas from the office of the Registrar General of India or Census Commissioner of India/Registrar of Census and make the available the same to all the billing authorities with clear instruction to charge the tariff as per the classification,'' the circular has noted. Send this article to Friends by E-Mail Comment on this article to [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.goacom.com/news/getStory.php?ID=384 [goawebnews] Colvale ?storm? reaches BSNL office over classification From: Goa Desc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 22:07:19 +0530 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Documented by Goa Desc Resource Centre Ph:2252660 Website: www.goadesc.org Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Press Clippings on the web: http://www.goadesc.org/mem/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Colvale 'storm' reaches BSNL office over classification ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Margao, Ponda, Vasco - (Telephone) rental Rs 180; Colvale rental Rs 250, Is Colvale a metropolitan city?" screamed one placard prominently displayed at a morcha taken out by villagers of Colvale, Sodiem-Siolim, Guirim (Arrady), Revora, Nadora, Aldona, Parra, Moira and Nachinola on Thursday. The protesters were challenging the classification of rural areas as urban for the purpose of rentals. An estimated 1,000 villagers, led by Colvale sarpanch, Nilkanth Halarnkar, participated in the protest action. They marched to the BSNL General Manager's office at Patto, where they also conducted a public meeting to voice their protests against "unjustified" telephone tariffs and billing.A delegation of the protesters also met the Goa Telecom General Manager, and conveyed to him their grievances. Telephone subscribers from Colvale and Aldona have for long been protesting against the BSNL's decision to classify their villages as urban areas as they come under the Panjim Short Distance Charging Area (SDCA). This has resulted in higher rental charges for subscribers in these villages. "Colvale is a village, a rural area. But we are paying a rental of Rs 250 per month; other big areas are paying Rs 180 per month", says businessman L Dessai. "They cannot put us under Panjim", says another aggrieved member in the crowd. When contacted telephonically, the recently appointed General Manager A K Desarkar said: "It is not within the scope of my powers. It is a policy decision, which has to be taken by the Department of Telecommunications and the BSNL Headquarters, New Delhi." In fact, the matter has been forwarded to the headquarters, and a decision on this matter is pending from them. The subscribers of Arrady, Guirim meanwhile say that they have to pay a rental of Rs 250, while other wards of Guirim are being charged Rs 110 per month. These affected villagers claim that BSNL, Goa did not inform them that the rentals would be increased from Rs 110 to Rs 250 from May 2003. The villagers also claim that BSNL has stated that the telephone rentals will be charged as per the exchange capacity, but are actually billing them based on the SDCA capacity. They have questioned the BSNL on this front. A letter dated September 22, 2003 was referred to, wherein the earlier General Manager of BSNL had stated that the subscribers whose telephones were found installed beyond Colvale census town (within the rural area) would be charged as per rural tariff and that this process would take a minimum of two months for implementation.But more than five months have lapsed and nothing has been done as yet, the villagers charge. "We have visited the BSNL office eight to ten times, but nothing has happened. Even now, there is no guarantee that anything will happen. We have given the General Manager 15-day deadline, and if nothing happens, we will take out a state-level morcha", says Mr Dessai. ---------------------------------- HERALD 12/3/04 page 3 ---------------------------------- ======================================= GOA DESC RESOURCE CENTRE Documentation + Education + Solidarity 11 Liberty Apts., Feira Alta, Mapusa, Goa 403 507 Tel: 2252660 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] website: www.goadesc.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Working On Issues Of Development & Democracy ======================================= =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--W-E-B--S-I-T-E--=-=-=-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from Saligaonet | http://www.goacom.com/saligao_tinto/ ============================================================================ * Send e=mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (NOT [EMAIL PROTECTED]) * Leave SUBJECT blank <--- Commom Mistake !! * On first line of the BODY of your message, type: subscribe saligaonet YOUR.EMAIL OR unsubscribe saligaonet YOUR.EMAIL Questions/Problems? 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