Consumer Guidance Centres in districts

HYDERABAD: The state civil supplies department will set up Consumer Guidance Centres in all districts in a couple of weeks to address all kinds of consumer service complaints. This was announced by Harpreet Singh, commissioner of civil supplies and ex officio secretary in the department of consumer affairs, food and civil supplies, at the inauguration of ‘Telecom Consumer Education Workshop’ conducted by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India here on Sunday.Addressing the gathering, he said telecommunication companies were cheating their customers by overcharging them and wiping off their talk-time balance by offering ringtones without their permission and allowing unsolicited calls and SMSes.Saying that he had been receiving hundreds of complaints from customers, he asked all nine companies — BSNL, Airtel, Aircel, Reliance, Vodafone, Tata Indicom, Docomo, MTS, Videocon and Uninor— to provide transparent and satisfactory service to their customers.V Srinivasan, chief general manager of BSNL (AP circle), blamed the cheating of customers on the unhealthy competition among telecom service providers.“Customers are also to blame as they look for a cheaper service instead of quality service,” he pointed out.TRAI conducted the workshop in collaboration with the Consumer Coordination Council, New Delhi; Confederation of AP Consumers Organisations and Consumer Awareness and Research Centre.All the telecommunication company dealers across the state attended