Grahakjago (S.K.Virmani)©

This news has appeared in theNavbharat Times dtd. 31st May 2012. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is the regulatory body in the Telecom Sector. One of the objective as per TRAI Act is to protect the interest of consumers. In my view the TRAI has failed to protect the interest of consumers as is quite evident from the above news report. It is not only that there is a failure in implementation of its regulations on MNP i.e Mobile Number Portability but also several other regulations. Few of them could be "Activation of VAS (Value Added Services", Unsolicited Commercial call (UCC) and all the three regulations were meant to protect consumers from unethical business practices. TRAI itself have confirmed under RTI that 5 regulations in UCC i.e Unsolicited Commercial Communications have not been implementable as no grievance redressal mechanism has been thought of. Is it not a joke with the 100 crore consumers??? Agreed, certain steps are forgotton at the time of making reg...

TRAI has brought out regulations w.e.f. 27th September 2011 to curb the menace of telemarketing calls. However, telecom companies seems not to be cooperating TRAI in implementation of these regulations. The following regulations are pertinent to the post: 1. All the telemarketers are required to be registered with TRAI for the purpose of telemarketing business. 2. All the telemarketing calls are to be carried out during 9.00 AM to 9.00 PM 3. All the telemarketing calls should originate from a number series of 140xx xx xxx so that the receiver of the call can identify the incoming call as telemarketing before opting to receive or not. 4. All the telemarketing SMS should be sent with a 9 alphanumeric character code or identifier and no message of telemarketing nature can be sent through an mobile number. 5. There can not be telemarketing call to a number which is registered with NCPR. It means the customer who have got their mobile number registered with NCPR can not receive ...