TRAI in its consultation paper has asked the stakeholders whether it should prescribe any format for publishing tariffs.
At a time when ambushed telecom administrators have chosen to raise tariff, The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has today released a Consultation Paper on “Transparency in Publishing of Tariff Offers”. In the consultation paper, TRAI plans to survey the straightforwardness figure within the publication of tariff plans and offers rolled out by the telecom operators.
TRAI has mentioned, Given the explosive growth and scale of sweeping changes seen in the last three decades, it is to state the obvious that the telecom service sector is dynamic. The dynamism gets exemplified in a fast-changing landscape as regards various operational aspects viz., the nature and composition of tariffs, frequency of changes in the tariff, the preferred modes of communication and paradigm shift in the modem age communication.
Typically, in the marketplace, the consumer faces the situation of lack of information, misleading information, unclear or hard to find information and information difficult to assess and compare which affects their ability to make an informed choice which best serves their needs. Therefore, the need for transparent sharing of complete sets of information relating, inter-alia, to tariff i.e. “rate and related conditions for the provision of service”, to protect consumer interests between Telecom Service Providers and customers need no over-emphasis. At the core of consumer protection lies the aspect of transparency in the communication of conditions of the provision of goods or services.
Further, the TRAI has been intermittently receiving a significant number of complaints from the individual consumers which though varied in nature can surely be said to be rooted in lack of transparency in disclosure of tariff information.
Therefore, it is felt that a comprehensive review of extant provisions aimed at transparency relating to the flow of information from telecom service providers to consumers is essential. Accordingly, this Consultation Paper has been issued with the objective of empowering consumers by making available all relevant information to them and to eliminate the instances of adverse choices made by consumers. The scope of the present consultation paper is limited to the review of transparency requirements in the communication of tariff offers by the service providers to the subscribers.
TRAI has invited comments from Telecom Operator by December 26, 2019.
