SRINAGAR- Even as life in Kashmir, after Thursday’s unexpected snowfall, has quickly returned to normal, the largest communication network in India, Jio Telecom, is still struggling to have the damaged fiber lines repaired in many parts of the Srinagar city, putting hundreds of its subscribers to immense hardships.
Many subscribers woke up on Thursday to find their fiber lines broken under the weight of snow. However, even after registering their complaints on the same day, the company has failed to fix the broken lines even as weather started clearing from the very next day of the snowfall.
“After I noticed the line broken, I booked a complaint with the customer service which was immediately replied with an assurance that someone will be deputed to my premises within 24 hours,” Farooq Shah, a subscriber of Jio, said. “However, nobody from the company bothered to either communicate via a text message or call directly.”
Shah kept calling the customer service, even escalating a request from his Twitter account, but to no avail.
“All I got was messages of assurance from different executives,” Shah said. “Nobody bothered to call.”
Shah’s frustration had reached its peak on Sunday, February 27, when a Jio executive, who identified himself as Mr Inaam, called him on his mobile number and asked him to wait for another day.
“I had already lost my cool but I didn’t want to take my ire on the caller,” a visibly frustrated Shah said. “Instead, I requested him repeatedly to take my issue on priority and have the line fixed.”
It was only a lot of pleading with the local executives that Shah’s broken line was finally fixed.
“After agonising wait of four days Jio deputed a team to my premises and fixed the line,” a relieved Shah said.
However majority of the subscribers were not lucky as Shah.
Kashmir Observer, which itself was operating on BSNL broadband following Jio disruption, was inundated with calls by frustrated Jio subscribers seeking media help to highlight the issue as their calls had elicited no or poor response from the company.
Kashmir Observer connection remained suspended for full three days after snowfall and and was restored only after higher Jio authorities were approached following no timely response from the officials in Srinagar.
Kashmir Observer has learnt that lines of at least 9000 subscribers have suffered damage due to the snowfall on Thurday and given the shortage of staff that the company has, it might take another week or so to fully restore their connectivity.
Many rue that while the service will be restored sooner or later they have a valid reason to be anguished over the outage they were forced to live with all these days.
“The service is quickly withdrawn when the subscription expires and is made available only upon the next recharge,” said Firdos Ali, a subscriber who runs his business at Boulevard. “Isn’t it unethical to pay for the period a subscriber didn’t avail the facility?”, he asked.
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