What’s the Truth ? – Where’s the Fault?

Earlier customers were asking about availability of stamps and stationeries in the post offices. Now they are asking about availability of link.

 

Bruhaspati Samal

Divisional Secretary

AIPEU, Group-C, Bhubaneswar

 

“Why the date of maturity was shown/printed in the Pass Book as the 31^st March of the Financial Year in which a period of 21 years from the date of opening of the account would be completed ?” – the customer became annoyed and asked seeing the maturity date as 31.03.2037 in the Sukanya Samridhi Account opened by him in the name of his daughter on 27.06.2015 in Finacle CBS. Since the rule position was not clear in this regard, the Counter P A just requested the customer to wait till a clarification is received in this regard. 

The second customer was frowned to see the monthly interest in his MIS Account as Rs.590/- instead of Rs.850/- . Since Rs.590/- was shown in Finacle CBS and reduction as such could not be detected at once, the Counter P A informed his Supervisor / Postmaster to bring the fact to the notice of the competent authority for a clarification/restoration with request to the customer to wait till then. 

The third customer got very irritated when the Counter P A asked him to pay fine in his RD Account which was shown in Finacle CBS when the transaction was made on 16^th though the cheque presented for the purpose had been  cleared since 13^th of the month. Nothing could be done instantly and to regularize the R D Account the Customer paid the fine with much hesitation for no fault of his own and the Counter P A suggested to wait till a suitable clarification is received.

By that time, the fourth customer in the line had lost his patience.  

“How much time will you take Mam ? I have been waiting  in the queue for last one hour.” – shouted the customer. 

“Sorry Sir, the connectivity is very slow. You have to wait” – replied the Counter P A. 

“No Mam ! I can’t wait anymore. I have some other important work. I’m coming tomorrow”. – the customer left the counter. 

            And next ! The approach was very polite. The lady standing in the queue with her child asked to withdraw money from her S B account to attend a medical case. The urgency to have money was quite perceptible in her face.  The counter P A though felt  helpless, yet requested the lady to attend any other CBs post office for withdrawal. But Alas ! Finacle was dead.  Nothing could be done due to link failure. 

The next day situation remained very miserable. The customers registered their anger and dissatisfaction with the reply that Finacle was dead and inaccessible.  

Earlier customers were asking about availability of stamps and stationeries in the post offices. Now they are asking about availability of link. While the Counter P As are sitting to work, the customers are waiting in long queues with much hesitation and resentment. 

This is not the problem of a day or two, a problem of one or two offices, but continuing for last few months in almost all CBS post offices since migration to CBS platform.

We have been writing the problems of sluggish connectivity and other allied problems arising out of CBS migration  for last 2 ½  months. Through our letters we have tried to draw the attention of Divisional administration, Circle administration, Postal Directorate, CPC, DMCC, CEPT, Infosys and Sify Help Desk as the Postmaster of a CBS Post Office  (Ashoknagar MDG).  In addition, citing the issues of Ashoknagar MDG as an example, we have also requested the intervention of our Circle Union, CHQ and NFPE to take up the issues at appropriate level for redressal of problems arising out of CBS including slow connectivity issues.  We have also handed over a memorandum in CBS issues to the CHQ in the last AIC at Lucknow ( 4^th to 8^th June, 2015). 

The administration proceeded on its own way. Complaints were registered. Incident IDs were raised time and again. With all our subsequent complaint, another Incident ID was raised by the Sify Help Desk without disposal of the earlier one. First, we were explained that a CBS office needs at least 256 Kbps per node operating Finacle and 128 Kbps per node operating other internet activities. Ashoknagar MDG has 9 nodes including the Server out of which 4 nodes are loaded with Finacle (Postmaster, Supervisor & 2 counters ) and 1 MPCM, 1 Treasury and 2 for Postman and Despatch. Thus, Ashoknagar MDG needs approximately 2 Mbps [( 256 x 4 ) + (128 x 5 )] instead of 256 Kbps ( NSP-1) and 128 Kbps(NSP-2). Accordingly, Proforma reports were floated from Divisional Office to Directorate for increasing bandwidth. Several instructions were issued and complied regularly through eMails. Sify personnel even attended Ashoknagar MDG and confirmed that the sluggish connectivity was due to low bandwidth.  

Secondly, we were told that that the capacity of the Central Server (600 Mbps at present)  is too low for data pooling in comparison to the number of post offices migrated so far for which NSP -1 under BSNL cloud is being obstructed causing slow connectivity / link failure and NSP-2 being half of the capacity of NSP-1 is adding to the problem. 

We were grossly confused and failed to understand the real mathematics. Whether the problem lies with the low bandwidth of the Post Office Server or with the capacity of the Central Server ? The technical faults were neither properly understood by the Counter P As / Supervisor / SPMs / Postmasters dealing with CBS nor anything was clearly explained to them anywhere by anybody. 

Though we continued with our correspondences, the issues remained unresolved as usual. We were compelled to remind our Circle Union and CHQ for arranging to bring out immediate solution through discussions at appropriate levels.  While our Circle union remained silent for months together and simply sat on the issues, the CHQ suggested to send such issues if not settled at Circle level. 

We were quite surprised. Who is at fault ? - Who will shoulder the responsibility ? – When and how the problems will be resolved ? Will it come to an end one day on raising of the first Incident ID or it will continue for all other offices to be migrated in future as of Ashoknagar MDG?  

To face the twin challenges of increasing competition and continuing advances in communication technology on one hand and to provide better customer service with wider reach to the Indian populace through more customer interaction channels, growth through new lines of business and IT enablement of business processes and support functions on the other, when India Post has undertaken an end to end IT Modernization Project and when CBS is an integral part of the same, we don’t feel it wise to regularly reply the customers that it is a new born baby and time is required to stand up, walk and run. This is the right time to realize that if the position is such with migration of a few offices to CBS at present, what will happen in future when all offices will be migrated along with CSI. Several such questions are there on smooth functioning of CBS and correct implementation of I T Modernization Project including the dream of the Hon’ble Prime Minister for a Digital India. 

The story of Ashoknagar MDG is just illustrative and Sluggish Connectivity or Link Failure is one of the problems out of hundreds in CBS Finacle.   

Now the situation is such that the Postal Assistants falling prey to the anger of the public from dawn to dusk due to continuous arguments/counter-arguments are being demoralized since they are not in a position to give a correct reply to the customers as to when the failed link will be restored or the slow connectivity will be faster. They used to give a coded reply to the customers that the system was slow or the link had been failed by just seeing their computer screen not opening at all for operation. The zeal and feel to work are no more. Every day, the P As of CBS post offices are coming with all sorts of preparedness to tolerate the rude behavior of the customers without any reaction since the customers have nothing to do with the Department’s failure to solve the problems. The defined fixed duty hour is no more and the staff are working till late night regularly without any financial or other compensation. Women employees working in Finacle are worst suffers being unnecessarily detained regularly till late night inviting serious social-life disorders.  They are just sitting to work and waiting to work. They are very much trying to work and crying to work for restoring the customers’ relationship and goodwill of the Department.  But surprisingly, they are not being cooperated timely as desired with required technical, hardware and manpower support.

On the other hand, The customers’ reactions are quite natural. In a very dissatisfied mood, the esteemed customers have to wait for hours together to finish their transaction(s). The senior citizens are registering their resentment both for delayed transaction and many times for no transaction. The agents are dissatisfied for non-printing of Pass Books. Due to sluggish connectivity, the staff are prioritizing completion of transactions of those customers standing in the queue during the short-time connectivity period rather than printing of Pass Books only to avoid rush. The customers are regularly threatening to close the accounts and proceed to consumer forum for bad services and writing as such in the Complaint and Suggestion Book. 

While we were working with a very pensive mood, we came to know that a high level technical team comprising CEPT and NISG personnel would conduct a workshop on the issue in Bhubaneswar with participation of the Divisional heads and System Administrators. We wanted to avail the opportunity. But unfortunately, P As / Postmasters of CBS post offices were not invited to such a workshop. Still then, we did not give up our hope. We approached our SSPOs and Asst. Director (PMU) at least to appraise the team to visit Ashoknagar MDG for field study. And that happened. The high level technical team comprising the Deputy Manager and Assistant Manager, CEPT, Mysore, Sr. Consultant, NISG, Dak Bhawan, New Delhi attended Ashoknagar MDG at about 5 PM on 23.07.2015 accompanied with 2 personnel from Sify, our SA, ASPOs(OD) and SSPOs. 

The Dy. Manager CEPT on his primary study revealed that out of 8 nodes, 1 is not installed with anti-virus, and 1 node and the P O server are not having updated anti-virus. He advised to detach the computer not installed with anti-virus and to install updated antivirus in the server and node having no updated antivirus. He also pointed out that the 2 new computers which were installed replacing 2 old ones in Ashoknagar MDG should have the same IP address. Mismatch in IP addresses is another problem. Reiterating the instructions issued vide Directorate’s D O letter No. 46-2/2015-Tech, dated 25.03.2015, the Dy. Manager suggested that the GUP machine should ideally  be kept switched on 24 x 7 as far as possible. In case 24 x 7 switching on is not possible, every day the GUP Machine should be switched on first before the other computers. We were completely unaware about the facts now disclosed before us.

Thus, in addition to low bandwidth of the P O server and capacity of the central server, we came to know other problems like mismatch in IP addresses and non-availability of updated anti-virus in the nodes causing sluggish connectivity. 

All shortcomings were complied by Ashoknagar MDG including installing of updated anti-virus by 27.07.2015. But the problems remained as usual. 

As we know from our CPC, all the CBS post offices   were affected on 28.08.2015 since Finacle remained inaccessible. Finacle remained dead on 29.07.2015. The CPC even failed to login. Even it run slow on 30.07.2015 and on 31.07.2015. The problem was repeated on 01.08.2015. The CPC could not login as intimated to all concerned. Even some interesting problems were being encountered also. We witnessed one or two nodes in operational condition in offices where more than one node had been loaded with Finacle. It was/is not also clearly understood while one particular node was/is being operational with Finacle, why other nodes in the same office was/is facing connectivity problems. 

What’s actually the truth and what’s the exact reason behind sluggish connectivity ? 

So many correspondences and compliances in a series, several interactions, telephonic discussions and physical assessments have become futile so to say. When such a bigger office failed to solve its problems, we are surprised how a single handed SPM will be able to do it. Manage the S B customers ? – Perform MPCM work ? Or look after the delivery works ?

We apprehend, if such type of services continue, a day will come when customers who have started abusing and misbehaving the postal employees especially the Counter PAs/SPMs/Postmasters, I mean the Group-C postal employees, will certainly raise their voice with the general public that the post offices under the direct control of Govt. of India have grossly failed to meet the need of its customers and thus need to be corporatized/privatized.

May we consider the issue as a conspiracy for phase-wise corporatization of postal services?