THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
(SHRI SACHIN PILOT)
(a) & (b) Regulation of Tariff has been mandated to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) vide the TRAI Act of 1997. TRAI has in the past issued several regulatory guidelines
to enhance transparency in the provision of telecommunication services. In addition, TRAI
has recently issued a consultation paper titled `Certain Issues relating to Telecom Tariff`
for seeking views of stakeholders, inter-alia, on further measures to improve transparency
in tariff offers.
(c) TRAI has mandated service providers through the Quality of Service (Code of Practice for
Metering and Billing Accuracy) Regulations 2006, which provides for Audit of Metering and
Billing System of service providers through any one of the auditors appointed by the service
providers from the panel of auditors notified by TRAI. The service providers are also required
to submit the audit report by 30th June of every year and the action taken report on
deficiencies if any pointed out by the auditor in the audit report by the 30th Sept of
every year. The Audit of the metering and billing system of service providers undertaken
in pursuance of these regulations have revealed over charging of calls in certain cases
and such audit has resulted in refunds of overcharged amounts to customers and initiation
of steps for preventing such incidences of overcharging.
(d) & (e) TRAI has mandated service providers to adopt well defined systems and procedures for
redressal of grievances of consumers. The `Telecom Consumers Protection and Redressal of
Grievances Regulations, 2007` provides for a three stage grievance redressal mechanism for
implementation by service providers viz. Call Centre, Nodal Officer and Appellate authority
in each service area. These regulations mandate provision of toll free telephone facility
to the consumers for lodging their grievances at the Call Centre, which has to redress the
grievance within the prescribed time limit for various types of complaints. In case the
customer is not satisfied, he can approach the Nodal Officer, who has to redress the
grievance within three days in respect of complaints relating to fault or disruption or
disconnection of service and within ten days in respect of other complaints. In case the
customer is not satisfied with the response of the Nodal Officer he can file an appeal with
the Appellate authority, who has to decide on the appeal within a prescribed timeframe.
(f) & (g) TRAI and Public Grievance(PG) Cell of Department of Telecom(DoT) have been receiving
complaints against the telecommunication service providers alleging various problems which
include billing, metering and tariff related issues and activation of chargeable value added
services without explicit consent of the customer. Details of complaints received against
various operators during the last three years from April, 2008 to September, 2010 is as below.
These complaints are forwarded to the concerned service providers for redressal.
Year No. of complaints No. of complaints received by PG cell received by TRAI of DoT
2007-08 1,47,369 2697
2008-09 1,55,723 2766
2009-10 1,10,147 6258
2010-11 45,333 #2645
(upto
31/10/2010)
# Note-Figures for period upto 30/09/2010.
TRAI has mandated the service providers to have 3-tier grievance redressal
mechanism consisting of(i) Call Centre level (ii) Nodal Officer level and (iii) Appellate
Authority level within their own organizations.
