TRAI raised the penalty on telecom operators to up to Rs 2 lakh
Tightening regulations, TRAI raised the penalty on telecom operators to up to Rs 2 lakh for poor mobile service quality, including call drops.
As per the issued regulations, financial disincentive is imposed on cellular telephone service providers for "non-compliance with the benchmarks for network-related parameters at the rate of Rs 50,000 per parameter for violation of the first instance and Rs 1 lakh per parameter for violation of subsequent instances. For non-compliance with customer-related parameters the financial disincentives imposed is Rs 50,000 per parameter," the TRAI release said.
TRAI has further said that repeat offenders may have to shell out up to Rs 2 lakh by way of penalty. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) through its audits has found that despite repeated requests by the government, there has been no improvement in the call drop situation.
As per the rules, call drop, availability of mobile towers, time taken for a call to connect, network congestion, voice quality and network related issues feature in the TRAI's service quality parameters. Consumer-related issues include complaint redressal, refund of wrongly charged money, access to call centre etc.
If telecom operators fail to meet the benchmark on the same parameter further, a penalty of up to Rs 1.5 lakh for the second violation and Rs 2 lakh thereafter.
"The Authority feels that these measures will act as a sufficient deterrent against prolonged non-compliance and will further improve the quality of service in a time-bound manner," the regulator said.
TRAI has found no significant improvement in the call drop issue in Mumbai and Delhi as operators are lagging on various fronts in meeting the standards.
