Trai forms joint panel to identify outdated regulations

Trai Chairman R S Sharma said committee's suggestions will be taken up for review in 2017

Telecom regulator Trai has set up a joint committee consisting of industry representatives to examine and identify regulations and tariff orders that are out of sync with times.

"We have formed a joint committee with industry representatives, which will identify regulations and tariff orders that have become obsolete. The committee will give its advice to us, and we will take it up along with other issues that have been identified for this year," Trai Chairman R S Sharma told PTI.

The committee includes Ravi Gandhi (Bharti Airtel), Sundeep Kathuria (Vodafone India), Kapoor Singh Guliani (Reliance Jio Infocomm), Rahul Vatts (Idea Cellular), and Anil Verma (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd) and is headed by Sanjeev Banzal, Advisor - Networks, Spectrum and Licensing, Trai.

Explaining the mandate of the newly-formed committee, Sharma cited the example of paging services where related regulations may have become outdated or are no longer relevant.

"There are services that do not exist anymore... Like the paging industry... So, those we should remove from the tariff orders and regulations... Similarly, there may be some regulations that relate to technology... Maybe, the service remains, but the technology underlining the service has changed, but we still have regulations that bind the services and technology together... They need to be identified," Sharma said.

Sharma also said the committee's suggestions will be taken up by the regulator along with other issues identified for review in 2017.

Trai will be carrying out public consultation in areas such as developing a new framework for tariffs in evolving the communication sector, next-generation public protection and disaster relief communication networks, review of national numbering plan, review of USO fund and exploring combining data from different sources.

Sources said Trai has already written to committee members to provide, by the end of February, their initial inputs on obsolete regulations in the telecom sector.