KARACHI, Oct 12: A Pakistan Telecommunication Company consumer has to leapfrog a great many bureaucratic obstacles to get cleared the code of a telephone number which has become “hung” for no fault of his.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Saturday that the phone utility received a large number of complaints by consumers whose code — which prevented the misuse of telephones — became hung or jumbled because of a system error.

They added that unless the person under whose name a telephone number was registered appeared in person at the customer care centre and submitted the photocopy of his national identity card, the PTCL did not clear the code of the number.

For instance, Syed Iqbal Husain, a resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal, faced the same problem when he locked his telephone number — 4812730 — by means of a code which became hung for no rhyme or reason. “I have constantly been receiving bills for the exorbitant number of calls each month for a very long time. I locked my number using the much-publicized code barring facility which subsequently became locked. My telephone number is registered under my wife’s name and she had to go to the telephone exchange in person to lodge the complaint. Even then, I had to write several letters to the customer care divisional engineer of the telephone exchange before the code was removed.”

The sources told Dawn that the PTCL had about 20 customer service divisional engineers to sort out the complaints of 800,000 plus subscribers.

They added that out of the 24 telephone exchanges in the city, only 20 had customer service divisional engineers. “Some telephone exchanges, such as the ones in Orangi Town and Gulistan-i-Jauhar, have only one divisional engineer who is at once the customer service divisional engineer, the internal divisional engineer and the external divisional engineer.”

In large telephone exchanges, senior PTCL officials said, there were at least three divisional engineers among whom the workload was equitably divided. “For instance, the internal divisional engineer is responsible for the switch room in a telephone exchange. The external divisional engineer is entrusted with the task of ensuring that the PTCL infrastructure outside the telephone exchange works properly. The customer service divisional engineer is tasked to sort out all the complaints of the subscribers by coordinating with other divisional engineers and revenue officers.”

A large number of PTCL subscribers that Dawn spoke to said customer service divisional engineers were too busy and too powerless to help a subscriber in any meaningful way. “First, there is always a long queue in front of a customer service centre at a telephone exchange. When, with a bit of luck, you manage to get to the customer service divisional engineer, you find that he tries to get rid of you by finding fault with your application or bill. For instance, if you have not attached a photocopy of a document, he will refuse to do anything unless you have a photocopied document. Now, telephone exchanges do not have photocopiers. So you first locate a photocopy shop and get your documents photocopied. When you return, you join the queue as a newcomer. This wastes a lot of time and energy.”

Dawn also spoke to some customer service divisional engineers, who asked not to be named, said subscribers did not realize the constraints they worked under. “A customer service divisional engineer is too beleaguered to help a subscriber in any significant manner. People turn to him for all sorts of complaints: correction of bills, issuance of demand notes, delay in delivery of demand notes/bills/telephone directories, restoration of telephones disconnected on non-payment of dues, sale and registration of application forms, information on new PTCL services, such as value-added services, etc. First, in order to get all these complaints redressed promptly, there should be excellent coordination between various PTCL departments which is not the case all the time. Second, we don’t have any facilities. We do not have fax machines and computer data bank to help a subscriber.”