A dire need to standardize Seat Allocation in MTC buses

The Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Chennai has been innovative and instrumental in augmenting its fleet strength and enhancing the services of the buses to ensure that the transportation abilities of the metropolitan city is fully met and the people feel comfortable in commuting using its fleet. I just felt that there are  a few things left unattended for a long time though:

1. The substandard and adhoc reservation of seats for women passengers. A few buses have left and rear for women where as some of them have front side earmarked for women. This often results in a good amount of confusion and typically in vestibule buses where a part of the rear side of the vehicle is also front of the rear section. Often you can see hostile arguments in the bus between the passengers and conductors.
2. The commuters-conductors still face the change problem and because of their inability (or unwillingness ?) to tender the change back in smaller denominations, they are eyed as miniscule pocket pickers by the public. The transport corporation still does not have a concrete solution against this menace.
3. The Eve-Teasing is still looming as a big menace. Witnessing a slew of incidents in M21 and D70, this blogger submitted an online complaint (vide reference number CTPCO00716) to Chennai City Traffic Police around the first week of August. The complaint still shows ‘Being Reviewed’. Not sure whether the CCTP is looking out for a few astrologers calculating auspicious and good days to bring a discipline in the buses.

Let us hope that the transport corporation and the city administration brings discipline in the transport operations of the city at least henceforth.

Do big hotels serve truly fresh and hot dishes?

The normal allegation against small restaurants/hotels in Chennai is that they would use cheap ingredients, compromise hygiene and also serve foods that were prepared even days before without regarding for the quality. People normally tend to quote big names like Sangeetha, Saravana Bhavan etc and claim that these always ensure the quality. I have one recent observation in Sangeetha and I feel that this public protection seems to be giving them a false cover and they seem to be diminishing the quantity and quantity perhaps in intangible terms.

Some of the cons about Hotel Sangeetha in Guindy are:

• The ever-crowded place.
• During lunch time whilst I had ordered meals, the neighborhood person had ordered some bonda. And whilst casually observing what the waiter was doing, he went in and was searchng for bonda. He found some remains at the bottom, pulled out two, put in the oven for a while and pretended to serve it hot and fresh.
• The table cleaning is often missing here. The waiters are ready to serve you and want to you eat in the same place and unless you exercise a stern voice to get the tables cleaned perfectly, one needs to appear themselves as if sitting in a pig sty.
• Unless you tip them handsful, the waiters are reluctant to serve you.
• There are two or three guys near the billing counter blocking the way and in a way to allow only their waiters to pay the amount; perhaps an unscrupulous way of making you to pay extra tips for them. Unless you raise the voice again and kick their asses apart to make your way to the counter to pay the bill, you are going to waste your time at the billing counter too.

Costly Clerical Errors due to poorly qualified staff at contact centers

Sometime back we discussed about “Poor Clerical Work at Citibank Chennai“. I just thought of the gravity of this incident is actually increasing and is encompassing in a bewildering way to even nonbanking contact centers. I have two more incidents to share in this front:

• Recession days are triggering Retail Robbery
• A few days back I had my vacation trip to Manali through New Delhi. I had the entire accomodation booked through MakeMyTrip. Though MakeMyTrip offers a one-stop capsule offering of all accomodation-cum-travel, I did observe a significant amount of major goof-ups in the same. A few of them below:
  • For the bus pickup in New Delhi, the phone number mentioned in the confirmation email was totally wrong. The address was incorrect too. Actually the bus comes to a petrol bunk near Hotel Imperial in Connaught Place to pickup. Fortunately, I could manage with the help of JustDial assistance and since I was able to manage the language. The most significant thing that pissed me off in the entire incident is that at one point of time, the call center agent simply brushed off and replied “I have no clues regarding that address. This is what I have in the database”.
  • The hotel booking confirmation too had a wrong number. Instead of September 14 to September 19, they had mentioned as December 14 to December 19. Fortunately, a quick call to the Hotel supervisor and his magnanimity saved a good deal of embarassment.

The organizations which are trying to open up call centers in India for the benefit of cheap labor and ease of management should also ensure that they don’t jeopardise the quality of the services rendered.

TRAI says minimum broadband speed is 256 KBPS but does Bharti DSL understand it as 2.56 Kbps?

According the TRAI, the regulator authority of communications services in India, a broadband connectivity is defined as follows:

“An ‘always-on’ data connection that is able to support interactive services including Internet access and has the capability of the minimum download speed of 256 kilo bits per second (kbps) to an individual subscriber from the Point Of Presence (POP) of the service provider intending to provide Broadband service where multiple such individual Broadband connections are aggregated and the subscriber is able to access these interactive services including the Internet through this POP. The interactive services will exclude any services for which a separate licence is specifically required, for example, real-time voice transmission, except to the extent that it is presently permitted under ISP licence with Internet Telephony.”

However, at least this week when I use my Airtel Broadband and check against the various Internet Speed Testing websites, it is a ghastly shock to witness pathetic and snail-speed internet. The fastest homepage (Google) takes four seconds to load on a typical business day with Airtel Broadband (Chennai).

Not sure if some business development manager in Airtel who has signed the license agreements with TRAI for ISP business misintrepreted the 256 KBPS requirement as 2.56 KBPS. I have also raised this as a doubt to Airtel Broadband as an escalation note. Let us see if they are really serious about the quality of service and what reply they give.

1. Reverse Telemarketing 
2. Mission Hilarity
3. Infinite Sink

   (We may need request services like (1) and (3) to our respective cellular operators in getting those implemented)

4. Or simply, as we have discussed above, when the telemarketer says ‘Hi’, you reply ‘Bye’. [Tit for Tat]

1. The People have virtually spit on BenzeGroup face over here (http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/benze-vacation-club-c184925.html)
2. The website benzegroup.com already seems to be embracing death as the whois record for BenzeGroup is bound to expire on August 14, 2009 with no signs of being to be renewed.
3. The website http://www.benzegroup.com/ itself serves a 403 Forbidden page

How would you treat people who just hop back at you only when they need something  for themselves?

• I have no idea regarding the specified framework called Drupal. If you would need, I can muster some PHP folks through my known recruitment circles and help you with. That would take a week’s time.
• Not sure, if the entity mentioned as ’some one’ is very important and is on a pressing need and hence I would not rather give any firm commitment from any delivery commitment from my perspective in this aspect.
• I also expressed my dissatisfaction in that this request is being routed to me after a long sojourn of no-contact and then just as a ‘bolt-out-of-blue’, this request is bothering my attention.

• When he joined an insurance company in Chennai around in 2002, he could help us with a good insurance policy to enrol. Had we been visiting another new insurance agent, we would end up with a class two policy paying up a higher premium for the same, since we were in the start of the career then and not knowing how best to negotiate and clinch for a good deal.
• He joined another private bank in 2004. He used his privileges to bargain for different loans with processing charges either heavily waived or subsidised for a number of associates in the group who were interested.

But the benefit I outlined should be treated as a one-off case. The bottomline of the story is that let us not treat others as just only information carriers/service provider piggybacking on them for selfish benefits. That does not fit the ethical spirits too.

The government should consider distributing its officials including the ministers throughout the state instead of keeping in one closed place of the city.

This discussion applies from the observations based from Chennai. It might be applicable to other states as well. Readers: Please feel free to share your views on this as well. A number of main ministers in the state of Tamil Nadu actually relocate to Chennai after being elected so that they can attend the daily assemblies in the secretariat. But the catch is that most of them are located within the same area. Either like MLA hostel or in posh areas of the city.  For example, I remember, Stalin was better associated with his residence in Baby Nagar (Velachery). Whilst he was in Velachery, the state administration was very particular in ensuring the civic and commuting infrastructure of the town. But once he was elected as the minister, I believe, the statutory shifting of the residence process chipped in and he was moved to Greenways Road. Perhaps similar plight and argument applies to other ministers as well from other parts of the city.

1. The civic administration agency would have a fear and would ensure that the area would be maintained in a good order.
2. The police would ensure that law and order situation in the area and vicinity are perfect.
3. This would also ensure that one particular area does not become cordoned off for the general public and minister-public rapport/relationship would be elevated to a greater extent. In other words, the difference between them would shrink.
4. Since they are in different areas, they would know the problems faced by the public and help achieve the resolution quickly.

Readers: What do you say?