The Hindu : TRAI seeks public opinion on ombudsman

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 26, 2004

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TRAI seeks public opinion on ombudsman

By Our Special Correspondent

— Photo: T.A. Hafeez

The TRAI Chairman, Pradip Baijal (centre), addressing an open house session in Chennai on Thursday.

CHENNAI, MARCH 25. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is eliciting public opinion on the formation of an ombudsman for the Telecommunications sector.

"Though, there is no system in place with TRAI to redress individual consumer complaints (which are to be addressed by consumer courts/fora) on the disputes arising between the service providers and consumers, TRAI is eliciting feedback from mobile phone users on having an industry-driven ombudsman," Pradip Baijal, TRAI chairman, said at a news conference here today.

Though TRAI was deeply concerned about the increasing complaints from the cellular phone users, it was examining whether it can have a mechanism, as in the insurance and banking sectors, to deal with individual consumer grievances, he said.

Briefing reporters after chairing a two-hour open-house session, he said the participating Consumer Action Group (CAG) representatives and other user agencies were advocating the creation of an ombudsman as this would be a forum to deal with specific complaints.

"We have also placed a consultation paper on our website (www.trai.gov.in) to get a feedback from mobile telephony users.

The cellular subscriber base in the country had grown from 10 million in December 2002, to more than 30 million now.

"The mobile telephony is growing at such a tremendous speed that within the next two years, it is poised to touch 100 million connections," he said. "India will emerge third globally in terms of cellular service users".

To a question whether TRAI would positively respond to complaints from mobile users, especially on billing, Mr. Baijal said the "market forces will become more mature, which itself will correct the present anomalies".

When a reporter drew his attention to the confusion in the tariff packages floated by mobile service providers, Mr. Baijal said a suitable software had already been identified for arriving at a standardised package tariff model. "We have strongly advocated reduction of the present tariff structure from the present 25 to 5."

On TRAI looking into the implementation of the Conditional Access System (CAS) in the major metros, Mr. Baijal said he would not go into the details, as the implementation process in Chennai was sub-judice.

In the other metros, it had been deferred as the State Governments were not willing to implement it. Without the State Government agreeing to the implementation of CAS, there was no point in TRAI coming out with guidelines, he said.

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