Trai suggests imposing penalty of Rs 3,050-crore on Airtel, Vodafone and Idea

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has suggested imposing Rs 3,050 crore penalty on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, for allegedly denying inter-connectivity to newcomer Reliance Jio. The regulator has also recommended the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to take action against these three telecom operators.

Noting that denial of interconnection by these operators to RJio appears to be with the ulterior motive to stifle competition and is anti-consumer, it said that it has found the trio to be non-compliant with licence conditions and service quality norms given the high rate of call failures and congestion at interconnect points for RJio.

Trai has recommended a penalty of Rs 50 crore per circle for 21 service areas, except Jammu & Kashmir, for Airtel and Vodafone, where the point of interconnect (PoI) congestion exceeded the permissible limit of 0.5 per cent. For Idea Cellular, the penalty has been suggested for 19 circles, except Himachal Pradesh, J&K and North East. The penalty for Airtel and Vodafone works out to about Rs 1,050 crore each, while in case of Idea Cellular it is about Rs 950 crore. Since, Trai does not have powers to levy fines; it has recommended the DoT to levy the same in its capacity as the licensor since these companies have violated their licence conditions.

Trai has recommended that DoT take action against each of the three carriers, saying that violation of licence norms warranted revocation of their permits.  The DoT now needs to decide on the next course of action. If DoT finds violations in all the circles, as mentioned by Trai, the telcos would have to cough up a combined penalty of Rs 3,050 crore.  Since September 30, Trai has been monitoring congestion levels on a daily basis and found that the situation has not improved.