TRAI Asks Telecom Companies to Offer Separate Recharge Plans for Voice Calls, SMS

TRAI order for telecom companies: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today mandated the telecom operators in India, which includes Reliance's Jio, Bharti's Airtel and Vodafone Idea, to provide separate recharge plans for voice calls and SMS in India.

The regulatory body today issued the Telecom Consumers Protection (Twelfth Amendment) Regulations, 2024 and the Telecommunication Tariff (Seventieth Amendment) Order, 2024, wherein it made it mandtory for the telecom companies in India to provide 'a separate STV for Voice & SMS'.

"This would give consumers an option to pay for the services they require in general and in particular benefit certain segments of consumers especially the elderly persons, those living in rural areas and feature phone users," TRAI wrote in its order.

In addition to this, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India also extended the validity limit for Special Tariff Vouchers or STVs and Combo Vouchers or CVs to 365 days. Earlier, this limit was set to 90 days. TRAI said that the extended limit will eliminate the need for the subscribers to perform frequent recharges.

At the same time, the regulatory body directed the telecom operators to provide shorter validity packs to the subscribers who need it. "The longer duration recharges of up to three hundred and sixty-five (365) days will obviate the need of frequent recharges. However, service providers may offer shorter validity packs, if desired," TRAI added in its order.

Apart from this, the organisation also announced that it was allowing the telecom service providers in the country to offer 'all the vouchers in any denomination of their choice'. Earlier, the telecom companies were required to offer top-up recharge vouchers in the denominations of Rs 10. However, the companies are still required to offer at least one top-up voucher in the denomination of Rs 10, TRAI wrote in its order.

The development comes almost five months after TRAI released a consultation paper to review mobile recharge plans, including exploring separate recharge vouchers for voice calls and SMS.