Subir Roy: India shining, almost

OFFBEAT

Our driver looked excited. Here was his chance to own a mobile phone and pay nothing till he called someone. God had given the likes of him a boon in the form of a lifetime prepaid connection (incoming free) for a mere thousand rupees.

All went well until he boarded the train to go home for his holiday in Bihar when the phone went dead. On returning, the showroom where I had helped him apply for the connection told him there was something wrong with his address and identity proof. He would have to fill up a fresh form and get a new number after a few days.

I went with him to the shop and then began a long journey of discovering how a premier mobile service provider worked. My inability to find out what had gone wrong and insistence on appealing to a higher authority eventually got me a name and a number. Next followed three days of futile chasing. Not only would my driver have to fill up a fresh form and get a new number, he would have to pay for the new SIM card.

By then I realised that the posh showroom of the company belonged to a franchisee who had made a mistake, had no influence with the company to retrieve the old form and set things right. If I wanted justice I would have to go to the company's office half way across the city. Then I did what all good journalists do. I called the PR agency fronting the firm and read them the riot act. The PRO of the firm came on the line soon, sent over another agent with a fresh form, my driver filled it up and got a new connection and a new number in two days. The saving grace was he didn't lose any money.

Here is another story. When our daughter reached class 12 and pleaded for a mobile phone, I took out a prepaid connection from another leading service provider and gave her the phone to use. When she got admitted to a Delhi college, we went to an outlet of the firm in Connaught Place and they told me, no problem, give us a photocopy of your Bangalore driving licence, we will do a circle change and your daughter can activate the new number in 48 hours. She did and all went well.

Then a few days before the Independence Day holidays when she was about to go to Dalhousie for a college excursion, she called to tell us her connection was gone. The company outlet had told her she could not use her father's phone and would have to fill up a fresh form and get a new connection which would take seven days.

It was my wife's turn to panic. How would she keep in touch with our daughter when she was away in the hills without a mobile phone? So I did what I knew best, called an old former journalist friend who now worked with the company and the connection was restored the next day without even any change of number.

We know India has changed. In the old days when there was no mobile phone or private service providers, you would have to wait for a landline connection sometimes for years. I know our mobile phone rates are among the cheapest in the world, but how much credit the firms deserve for that is unclear.

They are feted by us business journalists as the shining face of new India. India is shining all right and we are all so much better off. But woe betide the one in 10 consumers who runs into trouble. For him to get redress quickly without spending a fortune in terms of his time, even if he knows English and can fight for his rights, remains a horrendous task.

sub@business-standard.com