Trai may propose establishing ombudsman position

In order to protect rights of telecom consumers, sectoral regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is likely to propose setting up of an ombudsman, to resolve complaints. According to sources in Trai, a call will soon be taken if a consultation paper needs to be issued or Department of Telecom (DoT) will be approached for the same.

The move comes weeks after Trai sought more powers from the government to amend law to allow it to impose penalty of up to Rs 10 crore on mobile operators and jail term of up to two years for their executives for any violation of regulatory framework.

The Supreme Court had quashed the Trai order that asked telecom operators to compensate subscribers for call drops. However, this is not the first time that Trai has sought to set up an ombudsman. In 2004 also, the regulator had recommended to set up an ombudsman either by an amendment in law or by an amendment in the licence or by concurrence of the operators.

At that time while most of the NGOs, consumer organisations and individual consumers were quite equivocal about the need of ombudsman in the telecom sector, the service providers were not very convinced about the need for another institution in the sector.

The operators had said that the competitive scenario in the telecommunication sector would impose requisite pressure on the service providers to provide top quality service and highly efficient customer care and the market mechanism itself would ensure that the service providers take due care of the customers.