The Hindu Business Line : TRAI move on unwanted calls unfair: Telcos

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TRAI move on unwanted calls unfair: Telcos

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New Delhi, March 18 Telecom operators have told the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India that its decision to impose penalty on mobile service providers for unwanted telemarketing calls was unfair.

In a joint letter, the Cellular Operators Association of India and the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India, claimed that the operators had no control over the telemarketing agencies and therefore the fine should be imposed on these companies instead of cellular firms.

TRAI has decided to impose a fine of up to Rs 20,000 crore on mobile companies for repeated violation of the telemarketing regulations. The operators have also questioned TRAI’s powers to impose penalties.

Both GSM and CDMA operators said that in spite of all the efforts made by service providers to ensure that all telemarketers register, only about 13,600 telemarketers have got themselves registered out of an estimated total of more than 75,000. “It is this poor compliance by the telemarketers and their concerned institutions that needs to be urgently addressed to protect the consumers . The service providers merely provide the ‘pipes’ for the carriage of the calls and cannot be held responsible for such pesky, nuisance calls made by the marketing agencies,” said the letter sent by the two associations to TRAI.

“The entire industry is completely discouraged by this regulation since we have all been going out of our way and making all possible efforts to put in systems so as to enable the Authority’s regulation to be effective,” said Mr T. V. Ramachandran, Director General, COAI.

“ We urge that powerful actions be directed by the Authority at the real sources of the problem, i.e.- the errant telemarketers and their customer-institutions, so as to effectively protect our customers and end-users,” said Mr S. C. Khanna, Secretary, AUSPI.