Telecom Secretary J S Deepak thinks penal powers are not the one and final solution for call drops. His remarks come after TRAI demanded an increase in its authority and telecom operators started lobbying against this happening.
To recap, TRAI wrote a letter to the DoT asking it to boost its powers so it could fine network brands up to Rs 10 crore and throw their executives into jail if they didn’t follow the rules. The players subsequently lashed out at this, decrying the move as draconian and arbitrary.
It appears as though the latter has the Telecom Secretary on its side. As per PTI, he doesn’t think more penal power will serve to be the one and final solution to the matter. He then went on to express his personal opinion, stating that he doesn’t think that every call drop should result in a person landing up in jail.
However, the DoT plans to take a view on what TRAI has suggested in any case. Deepak also mentioned that the government believes in the telecom sector, making his remarks after a review meeting with top industry bigwigs like Vodafone CEO Sunil Sood, Airtel chief Gopal Vittal, Idea Cellular CEO Himanshu Kapania and Reliance Jio Infocomm MD Sanjay Mashruwala.
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Each company presented their 100-day plan for improving service quality and brought up the issues which were hampering their performance. Deepak claims that all in all, the brands have promised to set up 60000 towers. Each is set to cost around Rs 20 lakh which will result in an investment worth Rs 12000 crore spread over 3 months.