Calls drops, telecom coverage improving: Govt tells Parliament

Instances of call drop and improper telecom network coverage have gone down and the TRAI has imposed financial disincentive of Rs 3.29 crore on service providers, the government informed Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

Replying to supplementary queries during Question Hour, Minister of State for Telecom Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre said there has been a lot of improvement in call drops in the last three-four years and TRAI has introduced parameters for disincentive to telecom companies and a fine of over Rs 2.5 crore has been recovered from them.

He said the government has also introduced Interactive voice response system from 3.5 crore subscribers on call drops and feedback received from them, of which only 1.21 lakh call drop problems have been found.

Dhotre also said that as part of the revival plan of BSNL, 4G services will be introduced from April onwards and preparations are on in this regard.

The minister also denied any interception of phone call by the agencies.

"We should have faith in each other and there are no cases of snooping or phone tapping. We all get together to help improve the services," he told the members.

In a written reply in Rajya Sabha, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said TRAI has also introduced a revised graded Financial Disincentives (FD) structure for DCR parameters Effective from 1st October 2017, based on the extent to which a TSP's (telecom service provider) performance deviates from the specified DCR (drop call rates) benchmark.

"During the year 2018, TRAI has imposed total financial disincentives for not meeting benchmarks of different parameters under QoS regulations (CMTS) to the tune of Rs 3.29 crore, out of which Rs 2.73 crore has been recovered," Prasad said.

He said the upgradation of the network, addition of cell sites, optimization of the network at regular intervals and introduction of new technologies are some of the steps taken by the TSPs in order to improve network performance coverage and quality of service.

The minister said significant reduction has been observed in number of complaints pertaining to Call Drops/ Improper Network Coverage received on Centralised Public Grievance Redressal And Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) in Department of Telecommunications (DoT) during last three years.

The number of complaints received in the year 2017 was 4,534 which are reduced to 1,678, 1,162 and 22 in the years 2018, 2019 and 2020 (up to 31st January, 2020) respectively.