July 4, 2014 Update; Soon after the below incident, Mr Saisiva of RanCon the contractor for Vodafone executing this work called us and assured us that they would quickly comply. We did see barricades and some signs pop up and were appreciative of the effort.
Citizens are now quickly showing up everytime they are asphalting to ensure that their work is as it should be. The first time they tried to asphalt, they were asked to stop and resume only when they would do quality work. Need I say more..
Original Post
Top of mind for everyone in the area is the nightmarish massive holes dug deep every few feet all along the main roads of the greater Whitefield. This time, its Vodafone. As we have seen before with OFCs, they dig, leave large mounds of mud all over, eventually many months later once, the cables are pulled, they loosely cover it and disappear. People have fallen into these holes and the traffic nightmare it causes is unimaginable. One look at the contract and you realize there is a blatant breach of so many clauses in there.
So we reached out to Vodafone via telephone and got a weak apologetic email. Can Vodafone get away with writing this same email in their home country? Would the attached pictures and breaches be acceptable there? We were forced to take a strong stance and reply with clear facts!
Our reply to Vodafone was as below. How will Vodafone react? Will they defend themselves or actually reach out and correct their wrong to the very customers they expect to get business from.
Dear Mr. Saisava:
Thank you for taking the time to respond to us. While your intentions seem to be good, we wish to bring to your attention that you are in serious breach of your contract with BBMP the terms of which you most unfortunately seem to be unaware of. Therefore before responding to us kindly take a moment to go through the terms and conditions of the contract as attached.
Here are the actions you need to take: Pls refer to Paras 6,7,8 and 9 of your contract reproduced below for your convenience:
- BEFORE YOU START A PIT – we need the following in place: (PARA 9 of your contract)
-
- SAFETY BARRICADE WITH WARNING LIGHTS AND REFLECTOR CAUTION SIGNAGE
- CLEAR Signage “VODAFONE OFC WORK IN PROGRESS – INCONVENIENCE REGRETTED”
- OPENING AND CLOSING DATES TO BE DISPLAYED
- AFTER DIGGING – EXCESS DEBRIS AROUND THE AREA TO BE CLEARED IMMEDIATELY ON SAME DAY (Para 8 of your contract)
- What restoration you have done is NOT to original surface condition – YOU HAVE TO ASPHALT to smooth finish – this mean you have to run your asphalt over a much larger area than just the pit – there should be NO BUMP in the ROAD – We trust Vodafone is capable enough to understand international standards and the meaning of “original”.
- PAVEMENTS MUST be restored with ORIGINAL TILE – no bumps allowed – see picture attached.
We are recording all the delays that you are taking and all violations of the contract.
PLEASE BE ON NOTICE that the residents and citizens of WHITEFIELD are fully aware of their rights and any continued violation of the contract terms will result in a POLICE CASE and criminal complaint filed against the MANAGING DIRECTOR and BOARD OF DIRECTORS of VODAFONE INDIA for gross negligence and intentional violation leading to hazard and danger to life and limb of Indian Citizens which can result in imprisonment of your officers.
A copy of this email with the contract is being delivered to the VODAFONE OFC VICE PRESIDENT and copy to BBMP Commissioner and Chief Minister of Karnataka, Hon Siddharamiah and a copy to the Prime Ministers Office – this is because VODAFONE is a large corporation that is FULLY AWARE of international standards of doing work and is fully capable of understanding and executing works in India. Any shortcomings in its execution amounts to simply willful negligence and wrongdoing.
Please note that any attempt to bribe or pay off officials of BBMP or otherwise is a punishable offence under the Indian Penal Code.
We trust you have understood our message here but if not feel free to call any of us for any clarifications. We are 25,000 of us. Please note that we expect FULL COMPLIANCE by international standards immediately. Our numbers are: 9741351304, 9845790106, 9845010414 , 9886053043, 9972300405
Thanking you for your cooperation. Please do update us as this dialogue will be followed on a blog across Whitefield. Blog is at www.whitefieldrising.org
Sincerely,
Anjali Saini , Nitya Ramakrishnan
Whitefield Rising – Streets
1st Email from Mr Saisiva on June 18, 2014 in response to our phone call.
Dear Mrs.Nithya,
Good Afternoon!
It has been brought to our notice that there has been inconvenience caused due to the ongoing Vodafone projects in and around Whitefield area. At the outset, sorry for the inconvenience that this work might have caused to the local residents. We have sincerely tried to avoid any inconvenience to the public during executing the projects.
I would like to bring to your kind attention the following:
This is 4G rollout that is being done to start provide the fiber to home services in and around whitefield area as there are lot of potential customers in this locality and eventually provide seamless services to local residents of Whitefield area.
1. Work has been carried by Vodafone in this area. Prior and currently there have been lot of other operators too who have worked in this locality.
2. We sincerely do not want to create any inconvenience to the local residents, we have sincerely tried our best to do this work in a smooth manner.
3. We have been doing restorations to the pits on a regular basis.
4. Asphalting the pits will happen once the cable pulling is completed.
5. Firstly HDD activity will be done. Once HDD is done, pits are restored temporarily with wetmix. Once the cable pulling is done, later we go ahead do the asphalting which is the permanent restoration. You can observe that lot of restorations have happened in and around ITPL, Bigbazzar Road, Partially on the Kundanahalli to Ofarm Junction road.
6. Safety is the primary concern of Vodafone and we sincerely adhere to this requirement. Safety precautions have been taken especially to avoid any public inconvenience. Pls note that sometimes there have been instances that people have used the Vodafone permission to do other works. Unfortunately these are leaks in the system which will have to checked by the authorities on a regular basis.
7. Most importantly please note that BBMP has only opened up giving permission after a long period of well over 15 months. Hence the development projects to enable better telecom services in the whitefield area were over due. Hence you are seeing lot of work being carried out in Whitefield area.
8. Restorations between Mahadevpura – Hoodi Circle – Brigade TechPark – ITPL (KIADB Area) – Mayura Bakery – Kundanahalli Gate have started in full swing as the OFC cable pulling is completed. Entire restorations between this area shall be completed by end of this week June 22nd.
9. Please note that fresh work shall be commenced between Mayura Bakery – OFarm Junction – Saibaba Ashram – HP Petrol Bunk within 2 days. We shall take utmost precautions during this work also.
While I completely understand the inconvenience that this development project might have created, we shall assure you that the restorations shall happen at the earliest. Only the Road between Kundanahalli towards SAF signal, project is going on and it shall be completed in 15 Days. Meanwhile we shall ensure that temporary restorations are done on a regular basis to avoid any inconvenience.
Our project Manager Mr.Raghu shall be available for any further support that you might require for the Vodafone projects respectively:
Raghu – 9632066558
Murali – 9900031579
Thanks
Thank you for taking this up!
Whenever i drive, even the short hop to Forum Value Mall, my stomach churns at this senseless digging. Two steps forward and three steps backward.
It’s a pity that the beautiful roads of Whitefield are totally jacked up now. With the left lane gone, congestion and near accidents are the order of the day.
Brilliant work Nitya Dear!
keep it Up !
Regards,
Ranjana
Brilliant, please post on your social media sites and let us see what action the corporation takes…
It’s not just applicable to Whitefield road. All the operators and Utility Service provider just dugout the road and leave it for months, do a patch work and leave, be it ITPL , SH35. Then BBMP excuses comes, no funds/resource to repair the road or they use our TAX money to fix the Road which should have been the responsibility of operator/Service provider if BBMP observer stick to guideline.
Citizens are net losers here. Then who is gaining (Operator, Observer or Contractor for Repair)?
Good work! Collective strength of citizens is needed to get both governments and corporates to comply to agreed standards. Several of us follow whitefieldrising closely and are ready if you need more volunteers.
Great to see a voice for the residents in Whitefield ! Keep up the good work and I hope all can contribute in their own way to this initiative.
Hats off !
Wonderful! Excellent Job in taking this up. Kudos. Vodafone, time for right action now…
This is brilliant. Kudos to Whitefield Rising.
I absolutely concur with the part that these so called Multi National Companies would never dare or even attempt to blatantly flout the terms of a contract or just ignore their basic ethical and moral responsibilities.
… to add .. in their own country
Thanks for taking it up… It is really appaling to see Vodafone doing such a terrible job.
I had posted in the past on one another webiste. I happen to walk on the fottpaths daily and I have witnessed atleast two accidents becasue of this.
Hope it will be corrected soon.
http://www.ichangemycity.com/complaints/poor-condition-of-roads-in-whitefield
Whitefield rising has doing excellent job an behalf of Whitefield residents,we are thankful to them .
Dear Vodafone,
If service enabling is a reason you state as to dig up the road, I must say you do not deserve to be given a chance to provide the service.
Its a shame to see the road being dug up though out the Whitefield main road.
The ITPL main road along the SAP Labs, seetharampalya area, graphite junction, keys hotel, shell petrol pump see a lot of traffic and leaving the roads in such a condition does not give you any brownie points.
I am ashamed to say that I am your customer. The most I can do is change over to some other operator and convey this same message to as many people possible.
To be frank seeing the way the work was being done, I had assumed that this feat was BBMP’s but after realizing that it is Vodafone, you have secured the 1st position in being unplanned and road damaging logistics.
I just hope you get some sense in the coming days and appreciate the efforts put into building the roads used by several commuters daily. If you cannot do anything better, atleast do not spoil the roads we use.
Also do remember to pay up the 1.6 bn tax bill to our IT govt.
thanks,
Chinmoy
I am happy to see Whitefield Rising taking this stern initiative.
I stay at Spring Beauty Apartment and Vodafone’s claim to completing the re-asphalting the road cavities is incorrect. It is a shame that some work was done last week at the dead of the night- around 2 am using pneumatic drills which went around for nearly 1 hour and there not a soul to question this completely uncivilised way of working.
I fully agree with your comment -whether Vodfone would behave in a same way if this would have been their own country??
Anyone (from Vodafone) is welcome to my place so that I can show them around. (9741350810)
Happy to see such initiatives.
I believe the best way to stop these non-sense is to boycott the service providers. Of course, all of them fall under the same umbrella, but choose the one who is better among them. Lets educate consumers to boycotts these providers.