TRAI denies any drive to probe past tariff plans for predatory pricing

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has denied reports that it was undertaking a drive to investigate all past tariff plans for predatory pricing.

"There is no special drive being undertaken by TRAI to probe all the past tariff plans filed by telecom companies except those specific plans under examination," the regulator said in a statement.  

Recently, a media report had said that TRAI was probing all past tariff plans against all service providers for predatory pricing while offering unlimited 5G data. 

One of the other important things that TRAI has clarified is over the draft regulations on metering and billing that proposed regulations reduce the burden of service providers in terms of number of audits being conducted in a year. The regulatory body added that instead of auditing each licensed service area (LSA) in each quarter, audit is proposed on a yearly basis which means each LSA is to be audited only once in a year (a reduction of 75 per cent efforts). 

According to the statement from TRAI, emphasis has been given to the audit of centralised system rather than reaching to each LSA and duplicating audit of each plan. LSA audit will now be subjected to only those plans which are not subjected to the centralised audit. 

In one of the clarifications, it said, "Any tariff may be subjected to fresh examination as per statutory mandate of the Authority on receipt of a complaint of non-compliance to regulatory principles, including the allegation of predatory nature of tariff by any stakeholder including TSP(s)."