If the telecom companies have their way, India’s over 600 million telecom subcribers will have no where to go if they have a dispute with their service provider. They have so far scuttled any move to have an ombudsman and the telecom department had also rejected the idea of an ombudsman when it was first mooted by the telecom regulatory authority.
The telecom operators Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Loop Mobile and industry body COAI have opposed any move to set up an ombudsman for the sector to reso-lve consumer complaints.
“It is felt that there is no need to create an ombudsman. Rather, the existing systems can to be streamlined so that the complaints of the customers are resolved in an effective and efficient manner,” said RCom in a communication to Trai.
Trai had issued a pre-consultation paper on the issue of telecom consumers protection and redressal of consumer grievances.
Bharti Airtel said that the current resolution rate is over 95 per cent for customer care and 100 per cent across nodal and appellate desks. “Airtel currently employs a sufficient number of officers for nodal-appellate desks across the country and is in the midst of further enhancing the same to manage these desks better in order to drive speedy resolutions to customer complaints. We will be positioned to meet customers’ needs as and when they arise,” Airtel said.
However, consumer NGOs have asked the auth-ority to set up an ombudsman. “It is high time that an ombudsman is constituted for the telecom sector... The proposed telecom ombudsman should be set up one each for one state,” said the Consumer Rights, Educa-tion and Awareness Trust.
The Bombay Telephone Users’ Association alleged that to keep increasing complainants at bay, service providers have created natural and artificial barriers that make pre-paid consumers run helter-skelter.
In 2004, Trai had recommended setting up of the office of an ombudsman but the telecom department had rejected the demand.