The communications ministry is ready to consider any proposal to empower the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and give it punitive powers, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Monday, as the government aims to address issues of call drops in the wake of the Supreme Court striking down Trai’s punitive order.
Trai is looking into the SC order on call drops and will take a decision, Prasad said while briefing reporters on the second anniversary of the NDA government in power. “I am a minister for telecom growth as well as consumers,” the minister reiterated on Monday and added that operators had installed 1 lakh new sites to address the issue.
Prasad’s comments come weeks after the apex court decided in favour of telecom operators on compensating consumers for instances of call drops, saying the regulator cannot penalise operators.
The minister enlisted the achievements of the NDA government in the past two years since it came to power in May 2014, including the turnaround of loss-making state-owned operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). The New Delhi-based company, which has been posting losses for more than five years, had an operating profit of Rs.672 crore during FY15, and is expected to have an operating profit of Rs.2,000 crore during FY16, he said.
BSNL plans to add 40,000 WiFi spots across the country ramping up from the current 2,000 sites, Prasad said.
The minister also announced that a government-to-citizen app called Umang would be launched by the end of the current year, which citizens across the country can use to avail more than 1,000 central and state government services, including applying for passport and paying municipal taxes. The app will be available in 12 local languages, Prasad added.