ICICI Bank gives worst customer experience

This Saturday, I went to ICICI bank for reducing my housing loan tenure. In first place, in the attempt to keep the EMI (Eqauated Monthly Installments) same, the bank had increased my tenure to something as unpractical as 470 months (Over and above ~2 years of repayment I already did). Now that meant that I will be repaying my home loan till I become 80. Now why was the bank so sure that I will be able to pay my EMI till that age? I found it impractical in first view itself. Anyways… I though I need to get this updated ASAP. Meanwhile bank also sent me letter that they are not able to keep the EMI at same amount and have increased it marginally. I should go to the branch and take corrective action.

I reached the bank at 1:00 PM. The waiting area was full with nearly 70-80+ people. But since there is only one branch for the whole Pune city, I had no option but to wait. Having nothing to do, I started observing which counters are taking housing load queries. It is easy as the token number has specific prefix for such queries. I found that there were about 3-4 counters where these queries were attended. But soon after two of the counters stopped appearing in the list. Thinking that it must be lunch time, I looked at those counters. To my surprise, I found that these two counters were attending only one customer. I had to leave the bank by 3:30. I went to the help desk and got a reply that customers have lot of queries and the executives can not shorten the time taken.

Finally at around 2:15 the customer on first two counters moved out. Then there were two customers but still no movement till 3:00 PM. Meanwhile, there was a real rough fight between one senior officer and a customer, where the officer asked customer to “Get Out of the branch”. Words you will hardly hear from an officer. But I thought this guy seems to be controlling situation. I went to him and asked him:

  1. Is there any SLA for the executives attending the customers?
  2. I found the two ladies attending the housing queries taking one hour per customer. Although customers have queries, is it justified at such rush hour to take so much time?

Unable to answer my queries, he did the best he could. Allowed me to jump the queue. He asked one of those ladies to take up my work as soon as their work in hand was over.

This lady to my surprise was trying to cross sell me another product in the guise of helping me reduce my interest rate. She told me just by paying 20K, I would reduce my loan tenure by 100 months which was still impractical. But the catch was that I had to invest into ICICI Bank product for getting that benefit. C’mon when you have so many customers waiting, you can’t do such cross selling across the counter. She could have handed it over to a phone banking executive to do later. While I was being attended to, the lady at the other counter shouted… “this customers waiting time is 3 hours!!!” She had just called next customer. I said in my mind… “that means poor fellow is just fourth in the queue since morning”

Had the cross selling not been there, I would have finished my work in 10 minutes, which took me 20 minutes. But still I helped them improve their SLA. 🙂

Can Pune Municipal Corporation Sustain CYG Beautification

With the Commonwealth Youth Games 2008 Pune Municipal Corporation got ample funds to improve the roads and infrastructure. There are lot of traffic signs everywhere, streets are beautified, reflectors, lane stripes are now clearly visible. The city has a refreshing look. All good work so far.

Now the question is, for how long will this last? Does PMC has enough funds to maintain this? Or will it be the same story again within few months? We in India have habit of painting our homes on festive occasions like Diwali. Later all that enthusiasm goes down and we keep pushing the maintenance to lower priority till the next festive season.

Apart from PMC’s responsibility, do the citizens of Pune feel themselves responsible in maintaining the infrastructure that is also a big question. This responsibility includes not to misuse, keep watch on PMC and it’s contractors, not allowing general public to misuse. All this expense has been done out of tax payers pockets and that means everyone in the country. Not just income tax payers. Everyone pays taxes indirectly.

Let’s make all, who are part of the city or visiting the city, aware that it is in our interest to maintain this infrastructure so that the income is spent to improve/ add new infrastructure and not just maintain the existing.

Did Ketaki Mategaonkar deserved to go out

In yesterday’s Zee Marathi Saregamapa Little Champs, Ketaki Mategaonkar moved out of the race due to her bad performance in last episode. For past few episodes, she was experimenting. I believe that costed her dearly in this competition.

Ketaki is a very good singer just like her mother Suvarna. I believe two factors worked against her. Her song selection and to some extent, biased judges. Her selection of the Kelewali song from the thousands of songs, Mangeshkar family has sung/ composed, this song itself was non-starter. She got appreciation for her singing but the judges really were not fair to her giving  MM to her. She was definitely better than Kartiki and Sagar. Sagar is improving now but his earlier performances were definitely week and he should have been out by now. But he is lucky. Ketaki was not.

I am sure with all the grooming she has had and the support from her family, we will see her sing at professional level pretty soon. She will have to work hard and this result will make her take her singing seriously. Sometimes, she is very casual. May be out of overconfidence.

Bomb Hoax in Pune

India has no doubt one of the most craziest people in the world. Just a few days back one person walking on Pune roads saw two young men riding on a bike dropping a packet on the sides of the road. The bike apparently did not have a license plate. Cautious due to recent bomb blast modus operandi of the terrorist, he alerted the police. They in turn called the anti-terrorist squad(ATS). The story is normal till this point.

In most of the Hollywood movies we have seen this hundred times that one of the bad fellas or a cop fires gun and the crowd in the public place starts running around, scared to get killed. We never thought this is wrong. This is normal human reaction.

But here is what sets India apart from the rest of the world. When the Bomb Difusal guys arrived at the scene in Pune, instead of running away from the place to save their lives, there was a huge crowd to see how they guys defuse the bomb. Really… this is not a fantasy. People actually did not think twice before gathering at that place. Have you ever seen such people elsewhere?

However, as the mob expected the so called bomb turned out to be leftovers from some student’s kitchen.

Terrorism is plane ineffective in India

I just came across the chronological list of bomb blasts in India on NDTV. I am just summarizing this table here adding columns for people killed and injured.

Now if you see the other news that hit us from Jodhpur was about the stampede in the temple. This whole messy management killed 147 people and 55 injured. The one before that was the Naina Devi Temple Stampede. In this a total of 162 people were killed.

This was not restricted to Temples. The infamous Sari Stampede in Lucknow killed 22 women.

Compare all this with the terrorist attacks and you will find that all that labor and intelligence, secrecy, funds behind the blasts are simply ineffective. Except for the Mumbai train blasts, none of the other instances have been close to the temple stampedes. Such is the state of discipline, crowd management in this country. Despite all this, people will still flock the temples on specific days putting huge pressure on administration.

So when such incidents marginalize the impact of terrorism in this country, I do not understand why these guys are spending so much of their energy in such useless stuff.

Date Incident Killed Injured
September 27, 2008 Blast in Delhi’s Mehrauli flower market killed 1 and injured 23. 1 23
September 13, 2008 Serial blasts in Delhi killed at least 24 people and injured more than 100. 24 100+
July 26, 2008 Serial blasts in Ahmedabad killing at least 30 people and injuring more than 100. 30 100+
July 25, 2008 Nine explosions in Bangalore create terror killing two people and injuring twelve. 2 12
May-08 Eight serial blasts rock Jaipur in a span of 12 minutes leaving 65 dead and over 150 injured. 65 150
Jan-08 Terrorist attack on CRPF camp in Rampur kills 8. 8  
Oct-07 2 killed in a blast inside Ajmer Sharif shrine during Ramadan. 2  
Aug-07 30 dead, 60 hurt in Hyderabad ‘terror’ strike. 30 60
May-07 A bomb at Mecca mosque in Hyderabad kills 11 people. 11  
February 19, 2007 Two bombs explode aboard a train bound from India to Pakistan, burning to death at least 66 passengers, most of them Pakistanis. 66  
Sep-06 30 dead and 100 hurt in twin blasts at a mosque in Malegaon. 30 100
Jul-06 Seven bombs on Mumbai’s trains kill over 200 and injure 700 others. 200 700
Mar-06 Twin bombings at a train station and a temple in Varanasi kill 20 people. 20  

Zee Marathi Saregamapa Judges are prejudiced

Yesterday’s Zee Marathi Saregamapa Little Champs results were a complete disaster. I was expecting Kartiki Gaikwad and Sagar Phadake would be out of the context based on their performance in current episode. Kartiki was just like any singer in a train. She did not show any of her previous capabilities in this episode. Sagar on the other had sang OK. But I have started hating his attitude. He is just too overconfident compared to what his singing talent is. He is a performer by definitely not a good singer. His song selection was poor. He was out of tune and was complete lack-luster. I can understand Sanchita Garge did not do much well either. But the other poor girl, Rageshri Vairagkar was no way a contestant to go out.

This show is a contest and if someone does not perform well on a particular day, he/she should be out. Judges should not look into their past performances. In this show we are constantly observing that for someone who is obviously singing bad, is getting good marks because they are in the good books of the judges. My observation about Mangesh Borgaonkar’s sister in last regular contest was that she was sometimes jacked up in the contest because of her background. Finally somewhere the common sense prevailed and she did not go very far. But it seems that history is repeating. I believe, the only way to prevent this is not to allow the judges to see the rehearsals and not allow them to mingle with the participants much. This would ensure that the contest is fair and is based on the current performance.

Traffic Improvement Awareness Campaigns

While the traffic situation in Pune is still not improving, lot of volunteers and NPO (Non-Profit Organizations) are coming forward to improve the situation. Government and traffic police department is also spending a lot in creating awareness.

Most of these campaigns are focusing on the safety aspects of the traffic rules. For example:

1. Wear Helmets

2. Follow traffic rules and avoid accidents

3. Don’t use mobile phones while driving

All these are good advertisements, it does not connect with me (as a common man) because I know the probability of meeting with an accident every day is not that high. Almost 99% of the time I am troubled with too much of traffic and delays due to traffic jams. Common cause for this is undisciplined drivers who do not follow lanes, do not obey traffic signals, believe that by driving on wrong side of the road they will reach early and so on…

If I have to do a campaign, I will do it to address these issues. I can use video clippings of disciplined traffic. I will focus on the cumulative benefits on time saving. I will focus on cumulative saving on oil (this is current hot topic as well).

Just to give you an example, let’s say if 4-5 errant drivers create a traffic mess to save two minutes of travel time. This would save them let’s say two rupees of petrol. Total saving for these guys would be not more than 20 rupees. Now once they land in mess, they get stuck for 10 minutes each. But they also cause a traffic jam due to other similar drivers going on wrong side of the road. This causes a delay of 20 minutes to about 200 vehicles at least. Now if each vehicle spends petrol worth 5 rupees each (roughly 100 ml) in those 20 minutes, the cumulative waste for 200 vehicles is about 1000 rupees compared to saving of 20 rupees.Is this not a reason enough for those 4-5 drivers to go a little slow and spend those 20 rupees rather than wasting 1000 rupees for all of the vehicles?

I don’t have enough connections and networking to take this up. I hope somebody reading this has. Even if they don’t, at least we can implement it for ourselves. One thing I do regularly is to give way to another person crossing my road before there is a line behind. This causes me 10 seconds may be but avoids a traffic jam or halt of 2 minutes later for at least 50 vehicles. There are many ways to improve speed of traffic on the road. Discipline can actually make traffic faster and still safer than today.

Fight for your own right

For past few days I am going to office by car rather than the company bus. More and more I travel by car, I have observed that the traffic jams in Pune are caused primarily by drivers driving on wrong side. On a 4 lane road, you are going at good pace as there are not many vehicles on your side and suddenly you find that one of the rash drivers from the oncoming side is driving on the wrong side without any provocation. I say "Hey! that’s my side you are driving on!" A typical Puneri answer you will get is "What’s the problem man? You have some much space further to your left! Why don’t you give us some space"

Am I responsible if there is so much traffic on your side, I say. I have every right to drive on my side of the road. I finally have started doing one thing. I just keep my side and stop in front of the errant driver’s vehicle. This causes lot of anger on their part but I keep my cool and do not abuse anyone or say anything. At least I am resisting and not letting these guys go. My wife says, why am I wasting my time on these people, but if no one resists, people will keep doing wrong things. Isn’t it?

This reminded me of something that we used to do when I was in school. Remember in our geometry box we have something called as divider? A small tool with two pointed needles? It was not just a tool for geography. We had wooden benches in those days. So this divider was used to divide our desktop in two halves and the bench partners would fight for their share of the desktop. I was not allowed to move my book on the other half of the desktop and I did not allow my partner to do that as well. You know… fighting for our own area was in our blood. I am sure this trend is still there in school children. Why not use that same spirit on the roads? Will this not better the situation? One of the foremost thing that needs to be implemented in Pune traffic is lane discipline. I am using my childhood learning to do my bit.

पहिली अमेरिका वारी

अखेर अमेरिकेला पोचलो. आकाशातून बघताना सगळी पृथ्वी सारखीच दिसते. पण जरा जवळ आल्यावर जे नियोजन पाहिले तेव्हाच कळले की हा देश का वेगळा आहे. (इतके मराठी टायपिंग बास झाले एका दिवशी)

San Francisco when seen from the top looks so well planned. The town planning is very well defined in blocks. Most of the blocks are pretty rectangular and the houses within the block are quite similar to each other and give a planned look to the city. Having ample land makes most of the houses about 2-3 storey tall. Even the office buildings are all spread across.

I have been in sub-urban and rural areas of South Africa and now I am seeing various suburbs in California. What struck me most was that most of these houses are just like our houses in rural India. Sloping roofs, garden in front or back, car parking etc. But what makes them far more attractive and high quality is the overall discipline, neatness, cleanliness and detailing in the finishing touches. All houses have a well maintained garden/ lawn around. Very well defined parking area, all compound walls are well constructed and complete. You will hardly find broken walls. Also the people here can easily manage with a nominal boundary. Go to the crowded areas, on the roads, between buildings you will find that just a nominal barrier is enough to maintain discipline. Rarely you will find people crossing roads at will and at any place. It is in nature to cross the road at junction or at zebra crossings. This is a diagonally opposite of Pune, where even a 4 feet road divider is not a guarantee that people will not cross the road over it.

I keep on wondering, why is it impossible for us in India to show this discipline? Why are not our rural houses so complete till final detail?

पल्लवी जोशीचा एक्का आशा खाडिलकर कडे

मराठी सारेगमपची सूत्रधार पल्लवी 40+ च्या गटामध्ये आजकाल परिक्षक असल्याप्रमाणे गाण्याबद्दल बोलते. कारण तिचा हुकमी एक्का “अमुक तमुक करता एकदा जोरदार टाळ्या झाल्या पाहिजेत” हा आजकाल आशा खाडिलकर यांनी पळवला आहे. 🙂