TRAI issues clarification on month-wise recharge plan directive

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today issued “Telecom Tariff (67th Amendment) Order, 2022 ( 02 of2022)”.

Vide Telecom Tariff (66th Amendment) Order, 2022, TRAI had inserted sub clauses (xi) and (xii) in clause 6 of TTO, 1999 which provides that:

(xi)Every Telecom Service Provider shall offer at least one Plan Voucher, one Special Tariff Voucher and one Combo Voucher having a validity of thirty days.

(xii)Every Telecom Service Provider shall offer at least one Plan Voucher, one Special Tariff Voucher and one Combo Voucher which shall be renewable on the same date of every month.

In response to said TTO (66th Amendment) Order, TRAI received references from Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) for consideration of the following issues:

• The next date of recharge in case subscriber recharges the voucher on 31st of the month
• The next date of recharge in case subscriber recharges the voucher on any day between 29th Jan to 31st January.
• Timeline of 2 months provided by TRAI for the implementation of the Telecom Tariff Order dated 27th Jan 2022 being not adequate due to technical infeasibility hence require extra time for the implementation of TTO (66th Amendment) Order.

After due consideration of above issues, the Authority has decided to issue the “Telecom Tariff (67th Amendment) Order, 2022 ( 02 of 2022), which inter-alia contains the following:

In clause 6 of the Telecommunication Tariff Order, 1999,

• sub-clause (xii) shall be deleted;
• after 60 days from the date of commencement of this Order, after sub-clause (xi), the following sub-clause shall be inserted, namely:-

“(xii) Every Telecom Service Provider shall offer at least one Plan Voucher, one Special Tariff Voucher and one Combo Voucher which shall be renewable on the same date of every month and if the date of such renewal is not available in a month, the date of renewal shall be the last date of that month.”

CT Bureau