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Thomas K. Thomas

New Delhi , March 9

THE Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has questioned the authority of the telecom regulator in imposing Access Deficit Charge (ADC) on operators and has sought the intervention of the Government to take the final decision, as it is a policy-related matter.

In a letter written to the Department of Telecom (DoT), cellular operators said, "The ADC like the Universal Services Obligation (USO) levy is an instrument of Government policy, which is used to ensure affordability and accessibility of telecom services for all citizens. Thus, TRAI powers on ADC are only recommendatory and not absolute, based on which the Government would take the final decision and issue the necessary guidelines. After this, the role of TRAI would be to ensure compliance with Government guidelines."

At present, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is considered to be the ultimate authority in matters relating to deficit charge.

TRAI had imposed deficit charges on all telecom service providers as a means to raise money to fund rural telephony. Though the regulator had brought down the charges by about 50 paise a minute on national long distance calls, cellular operators felt let down after their demand for a termination charge was not met.

All private operators had earlier approached TRAI to express their opposition to the new ADC regime.

"The present ADC regime is structured in a manner which leads to several anomalies and flaws on ADC collections, encouragement of grey market, non-level-playing field between wireless operators, problems in verification, reconciliation and settlement," COAI said.

Cellular operators demanded that the Government merge the ADC regime with the USO regime, which is administrated by the Government and not TRAI. "Although the charges are bundled along with the Interconnect Usage Charges, ADC has nothing to do with interconnection. This is only a recovery mechanism that is being used to collect the ADC," COAI said.

The COAI move comes even as TRAI is seeking more powers for itself. It has recently sought to have authority over adjudicating interconnection disputes between operators.

This apart, TRAI is also seeking powers to penalise those operators who do not meet the quality of service norms.

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