Trai issues norms for recovery of dues

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today issued guidelines on procedures to be adopted by telecom operators to collect dues.

The move comes after complaints from subscribers and follows a similar action taken by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), which recently issued guidelines for telemarketers.

The regulator has put the onus of complying with the guidelines on the operators even though the collection work is usually outsourced to third parties.

"The service provider needs to ensure that outsourcing arrangement does not absolve them of their responsibility to fulfil their obligation to consumers," the regulator said. These outsourcing arrangements should not affect the rights of a consumer, it said.

The guidelines say the recovery agents should be given photo identity cards and trained by the telecom companies. Their work should be monitored by the company, Trai added.

The telecom operators should bring out a code of conduct for the agents. Trai also said that advance intimation of the dues should be given to the customer before the operator sends his case to the recovery agency. The service providers should also publish the names and telephone numbers of its agencies and authorised staff on their websites.

Earlier, the Reserve Bank of India had asked all banks and their call centres "" along with direct selling agents (DSAs) and direct marketing agents (DMAs) employed by them "" to register as telemarketers with the DoT.

About 80 per cent of telemarketing across all sectors is accounted for by banks, and around 90 per cent of banks' telemarketing activities are outsourced to DSAs and DMAs.