The division of telecommunications (DoT) is probably to lastly reject the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) recommendation to levy a cumulative penalty of Rs 3,050 crore on Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea for not delivering points of interconnection to Reliance Jio in 2016 when it had commenced operations.
Officials told FE that the view has gained currency that the time is not conducive for burdening the operators with monetary penalty as they are financially stretched and have to spend their adjusted gross income dues. Further, considering that the government has now announced that the subsequent round of auctions will be held in March, it does not want to take any action upsetting operators which may well constrain them from participating in the auctions. Since a new chairman has taken charge at Trai, there is also feeling that the regulator will not really feel slighted and challenge can be safely buried.
Though on the insistence of the Trai, the Digital Communications Commission (DCC), the apex choice-producing body of the division of telecommunications, had authorized the penalty in July final year, the matter has nonetheless not got the approval of the telecom minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad. The DoT also feels that if the demand notices raised, Bharti and Vodafone Idea are certain to challenge it in the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), and the government is not keen at this stage to enmesh itself in but yet another legal tussle.
Officials mentioned the DCC had attempted its greatest to get the matter sorted by asking the Trai to assessment the quantity as the sector was beneath monetary tension, but, however, the regulator stuck to its guns. In truth, just before the matter was sent to Trai for a assessment, a seven-member internal committee of DoT had rejected by 4:3 the regulator’s recommendation to levy the penalty and had left the final choice to the DCC.
To be certain, even a year back the DCC could have ignored the Trai’s recommendation and gone ahead with either scrapping the penalty or lowering the quantity. This is since the Trai does not have powers to levy fines. It had suo motu issued the recommendation to the DoT primarily based on a complaint by Reliance Jio. As a licensor the energy to levy fines and or cancel licences lie with the DCC which may well seek suggestions from the Trai, but in this case it was not so.
In October 2016, Trai had encouraged that a fine of Rs 50 crore be levied on Bharti Airtel and Vodafone every single in 21 circles, when a equivalent quantity be levied on Idea Cellular in 19 circles. Thus the penalty for Bharti and Vodafone was Rs 1,050 every single, when for Idea it was Rs 950 crore. In August 2018, Vodafone and Idea merged and was christened Vodafone Idea.
The Trai had encouraged fines following it had issued show-result in notices to the 3 operators towards finish-September 2016 following obtaining higher level of congestion in their networks, major to get in touch with failures created to and from Jio network beyond the permissible limits.
The 3 incumbent businesses in their defence had mentioned that there is a 90-day period considering that the industrial launch of services by an operator for delivering the demanded points of interconnect and they conformed to this deadline. They mentioned it was unfair of Trai to monitor congestion levels on a day-to-day basis and propose a fine. Ideally, it should really have measured congestion on a month-to-month basis, exactly where the outcomes would have been diverse.
The top quality of service norms prescribe that congestion level should really not exceed beyond .5%, which implies that of 1,000 calls not more than 5 should really fail. The congestion level is diverse from get in touch with drops. In the former a get in touch with does not get connected whereas in the latter a get in touch with drops following it is connected. For get in touch with drop, the failure should really not be more than 2%.
The regulator has no powers to levy penalty on the operators who do not comply with its directive. The maximum it can do is to chargesheet them in a civil court.