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New Delhi June 15 The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has set up a Telecommunication Consumers Education and Protection Fund to create awareness among telecom consumers and for protecting their interests. The fund will initially have a corpus of around Rs 10 crore.

In order to raise money for the corpus, the telecom regulator has instructed all the operators "who may have charged their subscribers any amount in excess of the rates determined under any regulation and which could not be refunded to the concerned subscribers, and thus, lying as unclaimed with the service providers, shall transfer the excess amount so collected to the credit of the Telecommunication Consumers Education and Protection Fund."

The telecom regulator has been instructing operators over the past years to refund excess money collected from subscribers. However, a significant amount has not been refunded due to various reasons, including change of address by the concerned subscribers. "The retention of such excess charged moneys, which actually belong to the consumers, by the service providers would amount to undue or unjust enrichment and, therefore, these moneys are required to be ploughed by an institutionalised mechanism for utilising such moneys for activities aimed at promotion of telecommunication consumer's education and protection," TRAI said.

The fund, to be administered by the TRAI, will be used to undertake programmes to educate the consumers about various measures taken by the Government or TRAI for protecting the interests of consumers and to conduct studies and market research projects on matters relating to protection of their interests. The telecom regulator is also planning to organise seminars, symposia and workshops on the subject of consumer welfare and consumer education in the field of telecommunication.

More Stories on : Regulatory Bodies & Rulings | Consumerism | Telecommunications

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