The Complaints Management Centre at Cauvery Bhavan has stopped functioning for the last ten days due to the malfunctioning of software in its systems and it may not function for another week.
The Board has finally decided to do away with the existing system of managing complaints and transform the office into a call centre.
The Complaints Management Centre has been plagued by problems ever since the IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System) was inaugurated over a year ago. This was an automated complaint recording system, similar to the enquiry system in Railways. All that a caller had to do was dial 155313.
A series of questions relating to address, nature of complaint and contact numbers of the consumer would follow, and the replies would get automatically fed into the system.
Four employees, who manned the centre round-the-clock would gather the details and ensure the complaints were attended to. This was in addition to the landline complaint number, which is functioning normally. On an average, the Centre used to receive around 20 complaints a day through the IVRS mode, a 24-hour customer care helpline.
“However, the software would work sometimes in the morning, and then suddenly stop working in the evening,” said a BWSSB official. It would then be set right by an engineer from the agency which created it for the board, he added. Unfortunately, the software related problems kept recurring.
“Ten days ago, the motherboard connecting the four systems to it crashed, and none of the four systems could be used after that. It was after that we decided to get back to the manual method of operation,” another source said.
On occasions the centre fully shut due to manpower shortage or system problem.
“We have now decided to transform it into a call centre. Six telephone lines are being installed for the purpose. Four of them will be used to attend to consumer complaints while two will be used to convey the information to the Assistant Executive Engineer and Assistant Engineer concerned,” the official said.
Dial 22945114
Trial run for the Call centre will begin on July 6, he added. Until then, callers can only call the landline complaint number of 22945114 to register their complaints.
The official denied that customers were suffering due to the malfunctioning software, particularly in light of water problems caused due to power shutdowns. There are ledgers kept 24 hours outside every service station, and customers can write down their complaints there, and it would be attended later, he added.
Water tariff hike likely
The BWSSB will be forced to increase the water tariff if the State government increases the power tariff, said a top BWSSB official, reports DHNS from Bangalore.
The State government on Tuesday sent a proposal to the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) recommending a hike in power tariff.
At present, the BWSSB spends nearly 60 per cent of its revenue towards payment of electricity charges to the BESCOM, he said. “This is because Cauvery water has to be pumped to the City from a distance of 100 kms. If the electricity charges are increased, we have no option but to increase the water rates,” he said.