The Hindu : Business : Agency to tackle telecom problems sought

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 11, 2004

Business

Business

Agency to tackle telecom problems sought

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 10. Overriding resistance from phone service companies, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has asked the Government to set up an independent agency to tackle the rising number of complaints of deficient phone services. The office of the Ombudsman suggested by the TRAI already exists in insurance and banking sectors. The next stage of appeal for consumer will be the consumer court if he is not satisfied by the redressal given by the Ombudsman.

The TRAI Act does not explicitly fix the responsibility to redress consumer grievances on TRAI. This responsibility is that of consumer courts. The Act only allows the TRAI to stipulate standards of quality of service and conduct periodical surveys of the service to protect interest of the consumers.

As individual consumer complaints are beyond the scope of TRAI and consumer courts are not dedicated to telecom related problems (making it a time consuming affair), an intra-sector arrangement would be more responsive to consumer complaints in the telecom sector, feels the TRAI.

Even if the Government accepts the proposal despite opposition from the phone service sector lobby, an amendment in the law or a change in the phone service license could be required. But the TRAI feels that such a change may not be required, as the legal remedy of consumer courts already exists. Ombudsman is being proposed as an internal arrangement in the sector, where complaints could be handled in the form of arbitration, suggests the TRAI.

The TRAI has noted that service providers are "not very enthusiastic in providing the required facilities and financial assistance for establishment of the office of the Ombudsman. The reasons for this view are obvious and do not warrant any explanation.''

It has, therefore, proposed that financial assistance for sustaining the office of the Ombudsman may be provided from the license fee collected annually from the telecom sector.

This will amount to a very negligible percentage (less than 0.01 per cent) of the revenue of the service providers and not cause any undue burden on them.

Phone service companies feel that the competitive scenario imposes requisite pressures on them to provide quality service and efficient customer care and the market mechanism itself would ensure that the service providers take due care of the customers.

It was felt that from time to time the TRAI could advise the service providers to adopt suitable measures to redress consumer grievances.

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