And we also pride ourselves on being a global leader (not just a player, mind you — leader) in IT. I also have a news item with me saying that India plans to reach the moon (literally) by 2008 — that’s just three months away.

Now for the reality. The grim, sloppy, sluggish reality of how our internet connections work, especially the government’s service provider. This is my personal experience but surely there are tens of thousands of others with similar experiences, so my case typifies what happens when one needs a VSNL connection extended.
I have over 200 hours of prepaid, unused internet time that was due for renewal on September 19. In June VSNL sent me a “reminder” saying that my account was expiring, and asking me to renew it. I sent a rejoinder saying that I still had three whole months to go before the renewal was due, and the VSNL sent a confirmation saying that I was right (no apology, mind you, for getting the date wrong).

Last week I walked across to the outlet where I got my renewal pack last time, to find that shop was closed down. Someone said they had shifted it to the other side of the complex, so I walked around some more, only to be directed in turn, to a Richmond Circle office. Their phone would never answer despite several attempts, and the other office that I was familiar with, at Geddalahalli, was, I discovered on going all the way there, that it had been shifted to Whitefield.

To cut a long story short, I finally opted for redemption option where the VSNL would deduct Rs 300 from my account and extend the validity by a year for the unused hours. I was asked to “revert one day before expiry so that we could be able (sic) to extend the validity of your account”. Fine. I sent a reminder on September 17 and again on September 18 (Why a request four days in advance cannot be considered?).

On September 20 when I tried to access the net, I found that my connection had been cut off. Several calls to three different numbers later, I was told that the activation will take 48 hours, even if I had already paid for over 200 hours (out of which they would deduct 50 hours for the privilege of letting me use up my existing account). “Ma’am, you can go out and use some internet cafe,” the VSNL rep tells me. Not very bright — I need an internet account to be able to check mail, etc, and that’s been cut off.

A book adjustment for a prepaid account takes 48 hours, after a week’s advance intimation, when there is no need for fresh cable laying, etc. If redemption-extension takes 48 hours why aren’t customers informed about this?

Why can’t a customer’s request, sent four days in advance be heeded, if two days are needed for “re-activation”? “Because government services have a mandate to ensure that customers do not get anything done without maximum hassles? (This column is being sent from outside, even though the VSNL has plenty of my money in its kitty.)

A  year ago, when I had a similar experience with the VSNL while trying to renew my account, I did my column describing the hassles that I encountered, and got an angry call from a VSNL official, who said he “might have considered extending my account if I had not gone to the press”.

So it hurts when criticism appears in the press, right? But these are not loose allegations that I am making, I have records to substantiate everything that I have described. On the one hand, customers run against a stone wall of inefficiency while trying to get things done, on the other the authorities get ruffled if a complaint gets published. What does one do?

“Don’t use VSNL, change to other options,” suggests a friend, who has his own bagful of stories of frustration in dealing with government undertakings. Yes, but the VSNL has over Rs 1,400 of my money that I do not intend to throw away. They say that having competition results in improvement in services provided by monopolies, and the VSNL in fact has competition from private service providers. But just as economic theories about prices movements  when demand and supply equations change (people tend to hoard and increase demand, when prices go up, in anticipation of further rises, instead of reducing demand) similarly, logical expectations do not seem to work when we are dealing with government service providers — after all, losses are written off or charged to the taxpayer’s account.

Or again, perhaps it is because people have started to move away from the VSNL and dial-up connections that service is so poor now, outlets where one can purchase renewal packs are being closed right and left. This is crazy, and not the best way of retaining, much less attracting, customers.

Did someone say we are a global player in terms of information technology, and ready to join the club of the exalted few? I can think of adjectives other  than ‘shining”.