BSNL KA NAYAA TOPI SCHEME
"Make hay while the sun shines", goes a saying and Indian Telecom companies just seeming to do that. Inventing new ways of minting money and cheating customers is nothing new to these behemoths who usually act in a cartel. From activating unwanted services to wrong billing they have tried every trick in the book to fool their customers. However, this new year BSNL should be credited for bringing the most amazing scheme to loot the public of their hard earned money.
Charging SMS higher rates is an old story. If you think you can get around the 1Re per SMS by calling your friend this year, forget it if you are a BSNL mobile customer. BSNL has now decided to charge a higher rate for its customers who have subscribed for a lower tariff by subsribing to their Special Tariff Vouchers (STV) by saying it is not applicable on 31st December and 1st January. Which means if you have purchased at Rs 44 STV by virtue of which your outgoing call are to be charged at 0.6ps per seconnd (36 ps per minute) for 30 days period, you will now be charged 1.5ps per sec (90ps per minute) on these 2 days. Howzzat ?? A 2.5 times hike for 2 days and also pocket the STV money too. There is not even an iota of doubt if BSNL succeeds in this scheme and no one questions it over the next few days, it fellow partners in crime will also pick the tab and start looting the hapless customers. Just like any other regulator, these companies too have one who like Indian police in old hindi movies comes after everything is done. Hope TRAI wakes up in time this time, to not only stop this scheme of BSNL, but also refund the BSNL customers the excess amount charged to customers. Or may time has come for for an AAM customer to get wake up and shake the whole telecom cartel.
On the lighter side however there is a silver lining, Government companies can think out of the box indeed..Hats off to BSNL for this "Topi pahnanewala" scheme .
