Now, pay mobile bills at BSNL counters only: GST Impact

No payments to be made at area shops; customers suffer

The bill counters of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) are witnessing huge rush these days as all the recharge and bill payment SIM cards of the mobile shop owners have been blocked after the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST) in Jammu and Kashmir.
For the last one decade, people avoid standing in queues to pay their mobile bills because the payment could be made at any mobile shop of any locality.
However, from this month onwards, the mobile shop owners won’t be able to pay the bills with their special SIM (LAPU), as the BSNL has blocked these, resulting in heavy rush and chaos at the billing counters of the BSNL.
“The BSNL has stopped postpaid billing through LAPU SIM after July 7 due to which we cannot pay the mobile bills of customers from here. Now, they have to go the BSNL bill counter for the payment,” said Ashok Gupta, owner of a mobile shop at Nanak Nagar.
Meanwhile, heavy rush of customers can be seen at the payment counters as they are left with no other option, but to pay the bills themselves. Though the bill can be paid through Internet as well, but most of the consumers are unaware of the process and do not want to take any risk.
“The bill payment procedure has spoiled my Sunday. It took me four hours to pay my mobile bill which was due on July 21. Due to the non-availability of bill payments at mobile shops, my bill payment got delayed and my holiday got spoiled too,” said Sandeep Sharma, a BSNL consumer.
“Now, a late fee will also be added in my next bill. How am I at fault, if they stopped the services at shops without any prior notice to the customers?” he asked.
Meanwhile, BSNL officials blamed the GST implementation after which they had to change the software. However, the private companies had done it within a week’s time.
“Software upgradation was required after the GST implementation. It is not in Jammu and Kashmir only, customers had to face inconvenience in other parts of the country too,” said HK Verma, chief general manager, telecom, BSNL, J&K.
“The software will be upgraded in a couple of days and things will be normalised soon,” he added.