Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issue the twelfth amendment to the Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations. This mandates telecommunications operators in India to offer specialised recharge vouchers with select services that concern stakeholders require.
This announcement comes after the TRAI held an open house discussion with concern stakeholders in October 2024, addressing issues such as choice of tariff availability, validity of vouchers, and colour coding of vouchers.
TRAI’s new regulations mandate telecom operators to offer standalone Special Tariff Vouchers (STVs) specifically for voice and SMS services.
This move will give consumers an option to pay for the services that they require.
As per TRAI, its twelfth amendment will benefit consumers from certain segments, such as senior citizens and those residing in rural areas.
TRAI also extends the validity period of STV and Combo Vouchers (CV) to 365 days, compare to the previous cap of just 90 days to benefit consumers, enabling them to opt for long-term plans.
As per the notice, TRAI is doing away with the requirement of colour-code vouchers in favour of online recharges.
TRAI also lifts the reservation on top-up voucher denominations, which were previously restrict to denominations of Rs. 10.
Telecom operators can now offer vouchers as per their own denomination choices.
But, they are still require to provide at least one top-up voucher of Rs. 10 denomination.
TRAI says amendments have made in definitions of STV and CV in the Telecommunication Tariff Order (1999) to align with the amendments made in the Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations.
TRAI has enforce many guidelines in recent months.
In August 2024, TRAI issue a directive to all network providers, asking them to stop promotional calls from unregistered callers.
Telecom firms operating in India have also direct to blacklist spam calls.
In November 2024, TRAI direct service providers to display the geospatial network coverage map, its availability, and the signal strength.
This move is aim at enabling better transparency and uniformity when it comes to providing wireless access service and helping make users more inform decisions.
