6:07 PM | Author: Siva
The Hindu reports transactions with BSNL, like mobile and fixed line bill payments, have gone online. That doesn't mean you can pay the bills online. You can pay them at the old telegraph offices/DTOs waiting in a line. Mr. Dinesh Varma, when we think of online, we think of this.

As an aside, The Hindu glosses over this effort as strategy. What it misses is that the effort is required to engage the staff BSNL has. That BSNL never fired anyone when it moved from operator based dialing to STD type service. It engaged all the 'operators' and 'monitors' (as the supervisors are called) in processing applications and bill payments for which it had staff already. (In BSNL's defense, the number of lines went up too). BSNL won't fire employees even when no one uses telegram. It morphs those offices to customer service centers to process bill payments.

Will you buy BSNL stock when it becomes public ?
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5 comments:

On 9:33 AM , Seenivasan said...

I generally wont prefer buying public sector companies (except for very few exceptions such as BHEL).

Do you know, Indian bank's employees protested when the bank went for IPO. I think they were afraid that they would have to start 'working' thereafter. :)

BSNL customer service really sucks. Luckily I have made friends with the Manager in the BSNL office in my area. Else, you know how the government offices work.

About the online thing. I continuously missed paying my landline bills when I installed landline at home. the line was disconnected. I was even got a threatening notice that a case will be filed and my properties will be ceased. (for an unpaid bill of 4000 - seriously I was scared). Though I can pay my bill at the post office, i am so used to pay the bills online that i kept on missing to pay the bill on time. i can not pay at post office beyond the due date. I have to go to a regional bsnl office to pay the delayed bill. that sucks man.

At last I found that I can pay my bills online thru 'bill pay' facility. I am living a 'happily-ever-after' life with ontime payment everytime.

 
On 10:29 AM , Baranidharan said...

That's true. When I bought BSNL mobile, I was afraid to get postpaid and went for prepaid. Periodic laying off will keep the load less and make the run faster.

 
On 10:45 AM , Seenivasan said...

Periodic lay off is not required. Performance based increments would do a great deal of good. You perform earn more that's it. Probably a bottom 5% may be given a 'threat' of laying off.

 
On 11:27 AM , Baranidharan said...

Yep. I agree with 5% concept and I meant the same. In government organisation, I will not be surprised if people start bribing to be not in the last 5%

 
On 11:50 AM , Siva said...

True, some sort of performance evaluation is sufficient. Periodic layoff is not a must in any organization.

But if you consider operational efficiency then some gut feeling tells me BSNL is not doing the right thing.

I did some quick search and found a few links

BSNL's productivity :
http://rru.worldbank.org/documents/toolkits/labor/toolkit/module3/benchmarking.html
(It is a long article, search for BSNL)
The situation is not as bad as I thought it would be. The productivity has increased over the years. Though the data is from 2000, I guess the trend will be same now.

But it is not exactly where we want it to be. Tata teleservices is doing better. (source : above link) Also, check this comparison with all countries

http://rru.worldbank.org/documents/toolkits/labor/toolkit/pdf/tools/Module3/BenchmarkIndicators_ITU.pdf

BSNL is no where close to be the best, whether it is revenue per employee or main lines per employee. I still feel BSNL has to trim down the employees.

The solution would be to use the IT infrastructure for applications, bill payments etc. But they are taking a step back by creating new offices for paying bills.

On the personal side, I have a family insider in BSNL. So never bothered about deadline for bill payments. She used to take care of it :-). But I may buy BSNL for some short term profits :-)