Talking tough on the unabated call drops, the Government on Wednesday asked mobile operators to take urgent steps to check the menace. If the situation does not improve soon, the mobile operators may be fined, the Centre warned. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said the performance of telecom companies would be reviewed after 15 days and warned them of punitive action if they fail to improve their services.
“Presently, I am not thinking of any kind of penalty imposition, but I don’t rule out the option if the situation doesn’t improve,” the Telecom Minister told the media on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Economist India Summit.
The issue of frequent call drops has become severe in the recent months and concern has been raised by the Prime Minister as well in this regard.
After meeting the chiefs of telecom operators here on this issue, TRAI Chairman RS Sharma said, “I have told them after 15 days we will have another test drive in the city of Mumbai and Delhi and we will also have data relating to other places. So we will measure if there is any improvement in the situation or not.”
However, the Minister said the Government is taking all necessary initiatives on the policy front and operators need to do their part as well. Stating that the telecom operators need to offer good service to get help from the Government, he said,
“The companies invest in India because there are one billion customers and if they want the Government's support, they have to serve the customers first."
The industry leaders present in the meeting included Bharti Airtel's Gopal Vittal, Gurdeep Singh of Reliance Communications, and Idea Cellular's Himanshu Kapania.
On the issue of radiation fears, the TRAI Chairman said the regulator will work with the concerned authorities and help spread the message that fear of radiation from tower causing health hazards like cancer is completely misplaced.
"One issue where we offered our support is relating to towers dismantled by the RWAs and municipal corporations. We assured them we will bring out the study which we have conducted. We will work with them and the Minister has already offered that towers can be put up on the Government buildings," he said.
Sharma added, "We apprised them of the test drive results and it is very clear from those results that except one or two operators, everybody was falling short of prescribed standards of call drops and other service quality related parameters."
Meanwhile, the regulator is also considering making it mandatory for telecom operators to disclose their network capacities periodically as it feels that the call drop problem needs to be examined in its entirety.
End