Airtel, Vodafone attract most complaints on service quality

Maximum consumer complaints for poor service and call drops have been received against Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance Communications in the last three years and the trend continues, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

As per data shared by Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha "regarding poor services and call drops received by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai)", nearly one-third complaints received in the first half of 2016 are against Airtel.

Trai has received 9,720 complaints for poor services, as per data available till June 30, 2016. In this, 3,257 complaints have been made against Airtel, 2,130 against Vodafone, 1,526 against RCom and 997 against Idea Cellular.

Telecom complaints against other players were below 500 in the first half of 2016.

There has been a similar trend of complaints against these companies in the last three years starting 2013.

In 2015, Trai received 6,131 complaints against Airtel, 5,387 against Vodafone, 3,527 against RCom and 2,594 against Idea Cellular, 1,465 against Tata Teleservices and 1,444 against state-run telecom firm BSNL.

Complaints against other telecom operators in 2015 was in the range of 500 or less.

The number of complaints increased between 2014 and 2015 compared to trend seen between 2013 and 2014, as per the data shared in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

The complaint mechanism against telecom operators is not seen effective as the complaints registered before Trai, DoT or any other authority finally lands at the door of the telecom operator for resolution — which is one of the parties in dispute with customers.