Ombudsman cleared for telecom grievances
Telecom consumers will soon have an ombudsman to answer any service-related query, address grievances related to poor services, and also to punish errant companies.
Approved by the Telecom Commission (TC), the ombudsman will be set up by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will make amendments to the Trai Act to help the regulator set up the ombudsman.
“The regulator had said they did not have the powers to create the ombudsman. So, it is now proposed to give them the powers,” Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said.
The grievance redress mechanism will be overhauled and a forum will be set up to register consumer complaints.
“This has been a longpending demand and a number of Parliament standing committees have raised the issue because we get over 10 million complains per quarter,” Sundararajan said, adding with the ombudsman in place, time-bound redress of complaints will be possible.
On whether it will have penal powers, the secretary said this would be worked out by the Trai.
The TC, whose members include NITI Aayog CEO and members from the Department of Revenue (Ministry of Finance), Ministry of Electronics and IT and Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, has approved Trai's views on internet telephony services.
The approval implies any company holding a valid telecom licence can offer app-based calling services, using wi-fi or any other internet connection. It was, however, not clear if the calls on internet telephony needed to pay interconnect charges, whose current rate is six paisa per minute. “On internet telephony, all the recommendations of Trai have been accepted, except one minor technical issue, like some local numbering scheme... This will be made operational immediately and we except this to give a fillip to voice telephony,” Sundararajan said.
The regulator had recommended that the service provider would be required to comply with all the interception and monitoring related requirements. The Trai had given suggestions on ease of doing business in the sector and there were 12 major proposals that aim to provide time-bound clearances of various permits such as licence, tower installation. All the recommendations have been accepted.
The regulator had asked the DoT to come up with a suitable matrix, linking the penalty to the severity of the incident. The Trai’s recommendations on the issue have been accepted, except that the TC has asked the regulator to work out an operational framework for implementation.
“All the members of TC felt that this is an extremely important recommendation because it will give a fillip to the growth of public wi-fi hotspots in India and will create a new category of service providers through the public data office,” the secretary added. Under the proposal, public data offices will be set up like Public Call Offices (PCOs). Broadband connections of shops, malls, public places will be streamlined to provide wi-fi services to people. This will ensure optimum utilisation of unused data.
The DoT would rationalise taxes to avoid cascading taxation.
The grievance redress mechanism will be overhauled and a forum will be set up to register consumer complaints