Gracy Tripathy
Port Blair, Sept 6: August 10,2020 was a historic day for the people of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, when CANI-SMC Project was launched by the Prime Minister of India. Not only this ,since August 10,2020 new tariff plan for Broadband and Mobile were also launched for Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
However, in September, BSNL bills issued to many broadband users came as a great shock to them. According to the BSNL broadband users, they got an inflated broadband bill for the month of August. They claimed that, together with the entire month’s broadband charge according to the new subscription plan, BSNL has also slapped the customers with extra ten days’ data charge for the month of August that is from 1st to 10th August as per the earlier tariff plan.
“Now customers will have to pay August month’s full broadband charges as per new plan plus the charge of ten days’ usage as per the earlier plan. This is injustice,” said a BSNL customer.
Talking to Andaman Sheekha, a few broadband customers expressed their deep anguish over the issue and asked that how could BSNL charge customers with new and old plans, both together for the first ten days?
They further demanded for a bill which either charge, ten days according to the earlier plan and for the rest twenty one days in the new plan or to charge completely for the month of August as per the new plan.
When Andaman Sheekha contacted the office of BSNL, for a comment on the issue, a Senior Officer, who does not want his name to be quoted said that when the changeover of switches were done in the middle of the month, there is no other option left.
“We tried to conduct the event by the beginning of the month but as Prime Minister was not available with his schedule we had to do conduct the event as per PM’s convenience,” he said.
When asked about the bill, he said that the billing system works according to the tariff plan in force on that particular day, so the billing system has to work upon the given tariff on the given date.
