Telcos may pay Re 1 for each call drop

Trai may recommend compensation for dropped call at Re 1 per minute and not exceeding three minutes of free call in a day, said sources.The issue received urgency after Prime minister Narendra Modi expressed “serious concern” over call drops and asked officials as to what steps were being taken to address this problem. During a meeting with the officials in August, Mr Modi had noted that call drops directly affects the common man.

He had directed that steps be taken urgently to resolve the problem, and also to ensure that the problems in voice connectivity do not extend to data connectivity in the future.

Despite the government taking the issue with the telecom operators, the situation has not improved significantly. The telecom regulator in a report on Thursday said that there is no significant improvement in the call drop issue in Mumbai and Delhi as operators are lagging on various fronts in meeting the standards.

“In Mumbai, none of the operators are meeting the prescribed benchmark, there is marginal improvement in some of the operators, while in Delhi some of the operators have improved the benchmark and three operators are still not meeting the benchmark,” Trai said. Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also said on Thursday that the government has taken all major policy initiatives needed for the sector like spectrum sharing and trading norms and now telcos should improve their system. “The spectrum sharing and trading guidelines are in place... These two demands were pending for the last four to five years. Earlier, the defence band had also been finalised, pending for the last 8-9 years.