Avoid regulatory overdrive

Two recent moves by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) have created some discomfort for the industry. The first one relates to the audit of metering and billing of consumer services, where the regulator is examining whether a long-settled practice needs to be re-looked. Whether subscribers have been billed correctly is audited by every telecom operator, after which the same is examined by the regulator as part of an external audit process. It is natural that some anomalies will get flagged and operators concerned would be directed to take corrective measures. What is worrying the operators is a recent consultation paper by the regulator that seeks to conduct micro-audits at the circle (licensed service area) level, against the current centralised process. Licences are awarded on a circle basis and all other regulatory obligations, like market share, subscriber numbers, etc, are also computed on this basis.