Telecom minister Kapil Sibal is likely to withdraw the powers of the field officers to levy penalty on mobile operators who fail to meet the performance standards outlined in the licence conditions.
The development stems from the fact that the operators have urged Sibal that the powers to levy penalty is unleashing a kind of inspector raj in the sector, where every official is slapping huge penalties on slightest pretext to gain brownie points. Instead the operators have proposed that the officials?who are of the rank of deputy director general?be empowered to only report the slippages and only the secretary or the minister then decides on the issue of levying fines.
At present, the officials who work under what is called TERM Cell units are authorised to levy penalties on telecom operators for slips in their network coverage, security lapses, traffic and subscription data inadequacies, roll out obligations and other operational flips. In the aftermath of the 2G spectrum scam and the Trai recommending cacellation of 69 licences for failure to meet the roll out obligations has accentuated the trend to slap fines.
Telecom department officials said that Sibal has given a patient hearing to the operators and is likely to make amends in the powers of the field officials to directly levy penalties. The respective TERM Cells would file any violations or slip ups by the operators to the department of telecommunications, which would then review the matter and direct the regional headquarter on what action to be taken, thus taking away their power to impose penalties.
“The regional TERM cell offices suddenly ask for massive data without giving us any time or intimation and then slap fines for random reasons such as network parameters, subscription data and the traffic data on the network. It is being seen as a prestige issue and a measurement of competence in the department of telecommunications and has fuelled a race among the various branches of the TERM cell?, a senior level employee of a national telecom operator said.
With the increasing number of operators in the country, the government established a wing at the grass root level in the field at all the licence service areas and large telecom districts of the country to keep a tab on whether service providers adhere to the licence conditions.