stay away from tata sky - perils of privatization
June 5th, 2008
I have been a strong advocate of privatization and I have written many posts before on why we need strong competition in the market to ensure consumer protection. But unfortunately even at this early stage, private companies are displaying such greed that I am getting skeptical now. In a country like India where people look for opportunity for cheating and fraud, effective government control on private sector is a must. Here is why,
The Tata Sky Story - Government opened up DTH field saying that it will bring competition and quality. So many of us including me subscribed to Tata Sky which offered good quality television at fair price. Even though it was missing some major malayalam channels (manorama news for example) many of us decided to take it just for its quality. Now suddenly they dropped tv channels such as Amritha Tv and Indiavision without any prior warning or message. One day these channels just went blank!
There is a channel called Cbeebies by BBC which airs programs for pre school children. They conveniently changed it to a category called “lifestyle silver pack” which requires additional payment! I think in the end these fellows will roll out a model where you will pay Rs.100 for every channel you want to watch!
Now here is the problem. We have already spent a lot money getting the dish and paid over Rs. 1000 for installation. Now in order to switch to another DTH, same amount has to be paid. Unfortunately the option is to go back to the Asianet service which offers much more channels at lower price. Interestingly they have better quality than Tata sky during rainy time!
Normally customer service phone lines are toll free. But in the case of Tata Sky, these numbers are premium numbers which means you will pay a lot of money just to call customer service! I guess some one very greedy is heading Tata sky. Tata is historically one of the most ethical companies, but not Tata Sky!
The ability to change service providers should be inherent in any service. Whatever set top box you purchase, you should be able to change service providers. Such proposals are now only in paper.
The Spencers Story - I have been writing many articles on the need for organized retail and how it will benefit consumers. But what I have seen with Spencers (a major retail chain) again fills me with skepticism. I have been observing their business model for a long time. They used to fill the store with really expensive items which many used to buy without looking at price. I was ok since it is the fault of those idiots buying that stuff. But what irritates me is the fact that they are now replacing well known brands with their own brand. Earlier both were available, but Spencers specific ones were given a better location.
But not any more. For example, it appears they have dropped “Tropicana” from their inventory and replaced it with something of their own. Normal eggs are replaced with premium eggs which is 2 or 3 times costlier. It is the same mentality - “when you ask for fruti, they give you maaza!”.
Both these incidents clearly illustrates the need for effective (not bribe supporting) government control. But these fields are so new that consumers will be having a tough time for a while until the dust settles.
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June 5th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
On the flip side the good thing about this is the market would correct itself. Consumers wont buy the things they don’t like and products stays on the shelf causing loss for for the seller. And since the shelf space in the store is fixed he will be forced to replace the products disliked by consumers with products that people want if he wants to stay in business.
June 5th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I agree to kuttan. Let other companies and malls come. Lets blog about them also. Let the competition cut out the winner.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:21 am
I live in Chennai and went to the spencers retail nearby. I too was sceptical. The prices for most of the products were slightly higher. However when I was paying the bill, they had a promotional scheme. Buy for 900 Rs. get Rs. 52 worth sugar and Rs 28 worth tide. This some what reduced my scepticism about retailers.
As a consumer we need to be really educated to, I would say exploit the offers, loyalty programmes provided by these retail chains. It is possible if we do networking or blogging.
Convenience and faith are the two main factors that determines shopping in these chains. If it is far off, any way we would not go. If it crowded like any other shop, we would not go, if it does not contain a few of the items that we usually buy, we would not go. It is upto consumers to be fully aware that by making a decision to purchase / subscribe I am also willing to take the risks / inconveniences it would bring at a later stage.
June 6th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Consumer vigilance is the only effective control. Dragging government is only going to make things worse.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Consumer vigilance and making people aware of the malpractices through media are the best way to combat this. Government regulation will only give way to bureaucracy to eat more. And at the end you have to carry both the shit.
June 14th, 2008 at 10:03 am
I googled on “tatasky trivandrum” and landed in this article…I was carried away by the recent 200rs family pack ad on tv and wanted to switch from boring Asianet to tatsky… I watch hindi and english channels more often(which asianet provides in a “rationed” fashion)…But after reading the article I m skeptical…Do they do the same with hindi and english channels too or is it the case with popular channels in the location??
June 16th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I am a customer of tatasky from 2006 onwards and i feel the service is good.Recently they drapped one or two channels.They are repackaging the sports into another package so that the subscribers can subscribe them independantly .Also for existing subscribers they reduced the cost of sports channels in their package and asked the customers to subscribe them independentaly.
I dont see too much of a problem in this.why making such hue and cry when they reduced the price from package and ask the customers to subscribe them independantly.
June 18th, 2008 at 10:00 am
I subscribe to Asianet digital. I pay just 210 Rs per month and watch only 50 channels in it. If I want to view all those 50 channels in Tata Sky, I have to pay Rs 350. Also, during rain, you cannot view Tata Sky. So I continue with Asianet!!!
At Supermarkets, one has to be very careful with the bills, especially while buying lots of items. Often the price on the labels on items are less than in the bill. Billers are also not trained properly and often make mistakes. The funny bit is that their mistakes are often detrimental to the customers!!!
July 1st, 2008 at 10:08 am
It has always been the ploy of pvt players to extract more from customers by giving them so little compared with their rosy introductory offers.In this case tatasky after finding their foothold in the dth arena is now manipulating customers in their own terms.Moreover their larger chunk of profit comes from their north indian operations.Considering the admirable network of SUN DTH and ASIANET dtv in tamilnadu and kerala respectively,they have effectively became a northindian player.Even that status is being challenged by ZEE DISH TV. So it is no wonder that they seldom gives ear to the complaints.Well tatasky is not the microsoft of indian dth arena,tatasky cant afford complacency.