The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has decided to declare the year 2007 as the year of the consumer. In the practice of making the life easier for telecom users, the Trai is all set to approach the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to grant more powers to take on mercenary and uncaring operators.

Trai chairman, Nripendra Misra said that

we will be circulating a draft regulatory mechanism in a few days to ensure quality of service (QoS) for consumers, but we lack the power to impose penalties on erring operators. We will approach DoT to give us these powers.

According to the Trai Act 1997 has given very little authority to the regulator on QoS issues. Now TRAI wants more power to control the telecom operators and their poor services, if any.

It is a kind of self-empowerment initiative and Trai has devised a creative mechanism to push service providers to bring consumer protection to the forefront.

The mobile metering and billing is one of the most deceitful experiences for consumers. The TRAI is going to introduce a special regulation notifying code of practice for making the billing process more transparent. On the roaming charges issue, the fight is also on between the private players and TRAI.

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