TRAI directed to penalise operator in case of call drops, says Ravi Shankar Prasad

Asserting the seriousness of central government on the issue of call drops, Union Communication and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Sunday said that the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has been directed to penalise any operator encouraging call drop.

"The central government is very much serious on the call drop issue, right from the beginning. Inquiry is going on for the last five to six months on call drops. The telecom department is monitoring the situation across the entire country, and even BSNL is working to improve the situation. The TRAI has even been told to penalise the operator in case of call drop. The TRAI is working in this direction," Prasad told media here.

"I want to say that with the effort of the central government in the last four to five months, the situation is about to improve, and will definitely improve. As far as, Bihar is concerned, I would like to say that, I had earlier announced the setting of 1150 BTS (Base Trans-Receiver Station) of 2G, and today, I want to say that 620 have been set up and 120 BTS of 3G have been set up," Prasad added.

"The experts from the BSNL have come to Bihar several times in the last few months and have done a survey on what all things are needed to improve the situation. Even Airtel, Vodafone is optimising and trying to improve the situation in different cities. Airtel is also setting up 10 BTS in Patna," he said.

According to the latest TRAI report, the call drop problem during peak hours has almost doubled in the last one year.