The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Thursday has ordered that every telecom service provider (TSP) offering at least one ‘Plan Voucher’, one ‘Special Tariff Voucher (STV)’ and one ‘Combo Voucher’ renewable on the same date of every month. If the date of such renewal is not available in a month, the renewal shall be the last date of that month.
After due consideration, the Authority has decided to issue the “Telecom Tariff (67th Amendment) Order, 2022 (02 of 2022),” after 60 days from the date of commencement of this Order.
In January, the TRAI had ordered this directive and had given 60 days for operators to implement the order, and modify their billing system.
Reliance Jio is the only operator which had commenced such tariff plans, (30-day plan and calendar month validity) recently.
Response from TSPs
TRAI had sought comments from the TSPs. The regulator had received responses from Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), Vodafone-Idea (VIL) and industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).
BSNL in its correspondence asked, “If a customer recharges on January 29/30 or 31, what should be the next due date of recharge; If customer recharges on March 31, May 31, August and October 31, what should be the next due date for recharge.”
VIL had stated that it would be meeting the requirements as prescribed under TTO (66th Amendment) Order. However, it had also given a tentative chart showing likely date of implementation for all LSAs, which may extend up to May 2023 and considering the issues it had requested for extension of time to meet the provisions of TTO 66th amendment (recharge with same date of every month), till technical feasibility issue is sorted out in balance 19 licensed service areas.
COAl on behalf of the sector had said that “any change to the tariff validity structure to make it renewable on same day of each month, will require gigantic efforts on consumer awareness, change in prepaid billing systems, publications in own and third party channels and retail channel education”.
Currently, most of the pre-paid tariff packs come with common validity period of 28/56/84 days, but the Authority had received complaints from many customers of the 28-day validity packs, which the TSPs touted as a monthly pack.
“The validity period must be of 30 days, with a grace period of 15 days for incoming facility (barring of outgoing calls) beyond the validity period of 30 days. The validity period of 28 days is indirectly giving undue advantage to the TSPs. Separate tariff offers should exist for 28/29/30/31 days to extend a flexible services bouquet to the Indian mobile consumer community. The period should be a month with requirement of tariff to be renewed only on the same date of each month,” the individuals had requested TRAI.
Published on
March 31, 2022
