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A few years ago, if you had a problem with your telephone, you had it! You had to make a complaint to the telephone department and they would take anywhere up to two weeks or more to restore the connection. In the process you had to pay at least Rs. 100 to the person who took your complaint and another Rs. 100 or so to the linesman. Without this "baksheesh' your telephone will not never work!
However, today the situation is totally different. Public sector companies can no longer afford to be indifferent to the consumers' needs. They can no longer encourage bribes, not pay attention to customer satisfaction and hope to survive. Time has come for them to change!
There is still a strong anti-privatisation lobby, vehemently opposing government
dis-investment in public sector undertakings, but what they don't (not really!) seem to realise or don't want to acknowledge (at least in public!) is the gross
inefficiency of the public sector. Like it or not, globalisation and liberalisation are here to stay. They are irreversible. The opposition to
dis-investment does not make sense. What is possible, not really necessary, is that the government can have a say in the whole process of
dis-investment. In the liberalised era, only that is possible. This is what BSNL has done and it is hoping to take on the competition.
India has the eighth largest telephone network in the world. There are a total of 37 million connections and 27,160 exchanges. The telephone density in our country is 37 per 1000 people, while in China it is 140 per thousand.
The market size of the telecom industry in India is Rs. 35,000 crores. Out of this, telephone services revenues account for Rs. 30,000 crores, mobile phone services Rs. 3900 crores, pager services Rs. 210 crores and others Rs. 890 crores. If the industry continues to grow at the present rate, the telephone density can increase to 70 per thousand in 2005, is the estimate.
BSNL, the biggest player in telecom, in the country, with over 32.5 million connections accounts for Rs. 23,000 crores revenue, followed by MTNL at Rs. 5730 crores with 4.5 million connections. Hughes clocks Rs. 140 crores with 70,000 connections, Bharti Rs. 110 crores from 130,000 connections and Tatas Rs. 85 crores from 60,000 connections. Others account for Rs. 20 crores from 40,000 connections.
 The private sector is offering services only in small pockets of this huge market. The Tatas are present in Andhra Pradesh. Reliance in Gujarat. Hughes is present in Maharashtra and Goa. Himachal Futuristic has a presence in Punjab. Shyam Tele is offering services in Jaipur and Jodhpur.
One of the private players Bharti (which went for an IPO recently) is getting ready to offer telecom services, headquartered in
Tamil Nadu, with an investment of Rs. 600 crores. The service is being launched in Chennai in the second week of March, 2002. In the next eight months Reliance will also get into TN and in the next twelve months Tata is entering the fray. All these players and some more will be seen all over India shortly. Celebration time for the much abused and tormented Indian consumer!
In this scenario, the question that arises, is BSNL equipped to handle this kind of competition and what are its plans? Whereas the private players will be offering 25 different value added services including call forwarding, call forwarding busy, etc. , our good old BSNL is struggling to provide fault-free services and also struggling to rectify the faults! (not their service!).
To take on the competition, BSNL recently announced (widely reported) a steep cut, as much as 62% off, on call charges. The consumers' reaction to the 62% cut has been understandable - all this while, they feel, they were being fleeced. One can't really dispute that. With Bharti's entry in TN imminent BSNL has even opened a customer-care centre in Ambattur - unheard of - look at how competition can move even mountains!
The public sector companies have no choice but to change, adapt, if they have to survive. The USP of the private sector is their instant service, quality, customer focus. They are assuring the consumer of a connection in 24 hours, fault redressal within 6 hours and so on. The only thing that matters is Quality and Service. All the talk of foreign bosses, MNC robbers, liberalisation choking domestic industry, etc. is rubbish.
As far as the consumer (the much-maligned ones, in our country) is concerned he/she is not interested in any of these talk. The only interest for the consumer is Quality for the price
paid. Going by all the developments in various sectors, one can safely say that the consumer has never had it so good.
Saravanan
Tr. Ellar
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