Bharti Airtel leads in consumer complaints on billing, tariff

Bharti Airtel, country's largest private telecom operator, accounts about a third of the complaints on billing and tariff received by Trai in the first 10 months of this fiscal, Parliament was informed today.

"During the financial year 2012-13 up to January, 2013, Trai has received 2,419 complaints relating to billing and tariff including complaints relating to overcharging of tariff," Minister of State for Communications and IT Milind Deora said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Quoting from the data, the minister said complaints against Bharti Airtel totalled 745, followed by Vodafone (505), Tata Teleservices (345), Reliance (329), Idea (194), BSNL (122), MTNL (36) and others (143).

On the redressal of complaints, Deora said the Trai Act, 1997 does not envisage the handling of individual consumer complaints by the telecom regulator.

"However, Trai has been receiving complaints from consumers relating to unsatisfactory resolution of their complaints. The individual consumer complaints received in Trai are forwarded to the concerned service provider for redressal," he added.