Bharat Sanchar Nigam - BSNL

OWNER: Govt. of India

INDUSTRY: Telecommunication

HEAD QUARTERS: New Delhi

KEY PERSON: R.K. Upadhyay

PRODUCTS & SERVICES: Fixed and Mobile lines, Internet Services, Digital TV, IPTV

NET INCOME: -88.51 billion (US$−1.5 billion) (2011–12) 

EMPLOYEES: 250,000 (Approx.)

CUSTOMER BASE: 100 million

PRESENCE: All over India except Delhi and Mumbai

WEBSITE: www.bsnl.co.in

With Mobile phones having omnipresence in almost every home more and more telecommunication companies are trying out their luck in the market. While most of such companies are India based the top giant Vodafone is a British MNC. While Indian Govt has fair share of money to keep its companies running, why is the oldest and largest company is facing loss? BSNL has the highest number of employees out of the most companies and still private companies are faring much better in the market. What are the reasons for such a performance? I've tried to the best of my capability to sum up some of the major causes for such a downhill progress:

1. Corruption: One of the major problems in Indian Governmental organizations is corruption. Funds are granted for a certain project and right from the Project Head to the peon everyone has the share depleting the funds at an alarming rate. Obviously the company is under major loss.
2. Service and Technical Support: Even with such large number of employees the problem of dead lines never seems to end. People are found to be rushing every 5 days to write a complaint. Then there are innumerable technical glitches so that the network is not even available most of the times. The worst thing is that if you have a data plan on your Mobile SIM the line seems busy to all the callers (like old times) which is highly embarrassing.
3. Unheard Complaints: Nobody seems to have a proper solution to any of the problems that we face. The customer care is not even attentive enough and there is often long waiting periods.
4. Lowest Rates: Although it should have been an attraction for the customers and it does lure customers initially but as they start using the service, severe disappointment is what they face. This makes them drop down the services of BSNL. With the technology boom and lack of time everyone wants high speed connections and not everyday problems.

Even though I am still using BSNL as my secondary number another thing which is a major letdown is this:

What is the purpose of sending such cheap messages that too from a state owned company? What are they trying to promote on a national network? What image and reputation do they seek after this, and do they think people are actually this dumb? Seriously BSNL this makes me so off from your services that I plan to get rid of this number as soon as possible.

I really hope our Govt can do better than this. :/