In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Milind Deora, Minister of State for Communications and IT has said that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued showcause notices to Bharti airtel, Idea Cellular, Loop Telecom, Reliance Communications and Vodafone Essar over alleged violation of mobile number portability (MNP) regulations.
Deora said that the regulator had received complaints from customers regarding the baseless rejection of porting requests by these operators. Also, TRAI found that the operators were charging Rs 10 for the message required to obtain a porting code.
Prior to this, in December 2010, the regulator had issued a directive to all operators prohibiting extra charges for messages sent to avail the MNP facility.
With regard to outstanding payments due from subscribers availing the MNP service, TRAI had recommended that if the unpaid amount in the previous bill was less than Rs 10, the operator should include the same in the user?s subsequent bill without any penal charges.
In order to reduce the number of rejected porting requests, TRAI had issued directions to operators on May 24, 2011, specifying that rejecting the request on the premise of contractual obligation can be done in the case of post-paid connections with bundled handsets, or corporate connections, which have an exit clause that has not been complied with by subscribers.
