How long should it take? Is there any honest Government of India Official to answer this?

I have surrendered my BSNL, Calcutta Telephones connection and the instrument as well.
I applied for the refund of Rs.4500/- deposite money for the telephone on 18/8/2006 along with
necessary documents. Despite my several requests the BSNL, Calcutta Telephones official tersely
denied to mention how long it is going to take to get the refund. This appeared to me very strange.

However he told me that there was nothing wrong with my papers.
Now it is well over a month since I applied for the refund.
My question is should it take so long to get the refund. If so how long? It can't be indefinite?

How much should I get as refund considering I applied for the telephone connection along with the deposit money on October-1997 and got my connection on January-98.

Dear fellow
You will be surprised to note here that my case is 10 months old. I surrendered to Kasrawad exchange in Khargone district of MP. I was handed over the receipt of the equipment. Since I had deposited only Rs.500 as security deposit I did not pursue the case for obvious reason of cost economics. But the point is that BSNL does not have a system to refund in a definite time frame. In most of the cases the customers just forget because of the vicinity problems. I have shifted to Ahmedabad now.
Secondly, despite all the privatisation, customer focus slangs, BSNL remains to be a "dead organisation" with least customer focus. They have a huge set up which can fetch them enough clientale and revenue but simply because they are not professionals and always have some designs to confisticate the amount.
If some BSNL official wants to inquire my telephone number was: 07285 255102.
I can feel your pains but surely you should follow up and recover your money. You can also think of knocking at consumer courts. I can only wish good luck.

Dear,
The telephone dept has different sections through which the application for surrender has to move. In all finality the intention of the whole exercise is to ensure, before refunding the amount is that nothing remains unrecovered/payable by the customer. I am not a BSNL employee, but I can assure you, there have been cases where the 'revenue loss' on account of erroneous refund is recovered from the salary of the employee. Therefore, the employees are only trying to save their skin and hesitate to take a decision and keep passing the buck.

I am not trying to justify the delay on part of the Kolkata telecom, but am only trying to bring to the fore the systemic failure.

And you also asked 'how long?'. Frankly anywhere between 5-8 months. I waited for 8 and half months to get it back in 2004. So all the best.

Prasan

Generally these people delay the settle ment of cases so as to push people to the point inducing them to think of gien some bribe . that is ine tactics of getting bribes without demanding . the higher oficials resort to such tctics. Just take th matter to the consumer foru. give a notice to the Department stting that you have taken so many months to order refund and that despite your persoanl visits to the office and personal approach ,the Departnment has not done anything to refund the deposit and they are delaying it in spit eof the fact that they said that the claim is ok in every respect . =Gie them a notice that if they do nmot refund the deposit withing 15 days form the date of the notice , you would take it to the consumer forum for difficencyof service and and for causing you mental agony and dislocation of work and unnecessary expenditure on personall visits to the Depatment causing much dislocation of you r domestic and office or personal causing tension and mental agoney and dislocartionis social life and family relationships etc and that the department should compensate for such things to an extent of Rs25000/ in addition to the refund of the deposit with interest at the existing Bank rate . Send thenotice by registered notice with acknowledge ment and after the expiry f the time of the notice just fil a case with the consumer court . in the menwhoie if the department asks yo to viist them , do not go to them and ask them to send all communicatioins by post .Do t relent and be firm in claiming the compensation.You will get back your money and the compensation too. for sure .They can not now say that yo have not furnished any iunformation of paper etc . Normally these peple used to destroy soime paper you submit tothem and say that you have not sent them if yo take kegak action against them . now that is not possible for they should have asked for such thihgs already as lot of tiem has gone since you made the claim and they have not asked for anysuch thng at any itme though you have made many bisits to that office .Teach them a lesson and do not yield to tjhem .they are paid a very heavy salary inconsistent with the natur eof their duties and despite that they do not work and force people to cough up money in bribe by adopting dilatory tactics..

Keep hitting on the head of the official and mark copies to advocates and magazines. If possible file a civil case. try ur till ur last breath.

Whatever u do dont bribe them

I understand your frustuation. whatever the issue is, we are the customers and we can't taken for a ride by any one. Will the same BSNL will provide/retain the connection, if we didnt pay the initial depost or failed to pay the bills a day or two??

Kindly address your grievance to govt of India through the online greivance center http://darpg-grievance.nic.in/. My friends had tried and the results was unimaginable in all the cases. Other things what you can do is send a notice to the bsnl GM and lodge a petition in the nearest Consumer forum (Will be settled within 90 days! offcourse never this happend!) What i recomment is to lodge the greivance throu Indian online greivance forum. All the best and let me know the result plz.

Give a legal notice to GM BSNL to refund you the amount within a fortnight alongwith the interest.
Though you may not get the interest; the refund will be made to you in 15 days.If you dont get it in 15 days; move consumer court and also claim interest , compensation and the cost of filing case in consumer case.

Hi,

Average 8 - 10 months is the time taken by efficient BSNL (Read Bribe Sanchar Nigam Limited). Application is processed at exchange level, commercial level, accounting level, administrative level and big boss level. This is my documented experience. Big boss refered here is GM or PGM whose sign is final at least in Nagpur telecom.

Speed of the boss is speed of the team. BSNL PGM / GM takes at least one month to sign the file and clear the refund.

If you wish to reduce this span, I do not advocate you to pay bribe but how it works and at Nagpur telecom, I will try to explain.
Pay Rs. 200 which will be sharewise distributed in all hierarchies and you may get refund in 25 days also. Its shame that ITS and GM level officials accept bribe as low as Rs. 200.

Solution to these issues: Write to GM / PGM by name and ask him for refund. Write in the notice that you will be solely responsible in you personal capacity even after your retirement and chances are GM secretary will personaly drop your refund cheque. In any case DO NOT FORGOT TO TAKE STAMPED ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. IF SOMEONE REFUSE THE SAME SEND YOUR APPLICATION BY SPEED POST SAYING THAT SINCE YOU HAVE REFUSED TO PROVIDE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I AM SENDING THIS BY SPEED POST.

Do not waste time by writing to Ministry of Communications. Consumer courts will be faster remedy. You can think of filing a case u/RTI or consumer courts also. But in any case I request you write names of officials.

Regards,
Avinash Murkute


Note: I have wrote around 200 articles in nespapers about corruption in BSNL. I am going to prepare compendium of court cases and corruption matters in BSNL. My experience (one can say biassed) says that CMD meand Corruption Managing Director. If any body wish to write to me (including BSNL staff ) please feel free to do so. Avinash

Stop visiting the BSNL office seeking information. Officially call for the information regarding the status of your request for refund, under the provisions of the Right to Information Act. This Act is meant for curbing such irresponsibility on the part of the officialdom. With the information, that they are bound to give, you may consider suing them for damages from the Consumer court.Step begging them for doing what you are entitled to. Fight it out.