COAI Seeks Predictable and Stable Regulatory Regime from Trai Chief for the Next 2 Years

However, Sharma had told PTI yesterday in an interview that “reasonable time” has been given to telecom operators on the issue and that the norms came about only after a prolonged discussion with the industry.

“It is not the knee-jerk reaction of Trai…,” Sharma had said.

In the past, Trai’s decisions, ranging from slashing of the call connect charges, to its stance on the provision of points of the internet (sought by Reliance Jio at the start of its services), and predatory pricing rules have been slammed by older operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular.

Earlier this year, Trai’s predatory pricing rules sparked off a furore as established players, and the trade body criticised the new norms. The COAI had indicated that the order distorted the market, placing all operators, except one (it had not named Reliance Jio) at a serious disadvantage.

Sharma stood his ground all through and maintained that while he takes telecom industry’s ‘fair criticism’ in his stride, the levelling of allegations of bias without any proof bothers him as it discredits and lowers the institution’s esteem.

The fiery Trai chief also engaged in a verbal spat with the Twitterati late last month over potential misuse of Aadhaar. Sharma had disclosed his unique ID number on the microblogging site and asked people to show how mere knowledge of the number could be used to harm him. The move had caused a social media flutter, and a tsunami of tweets had ensued in the aftermath of the Aadhaar dare.

Sharma yesterday said that no information was “discovered” about him on account of sharing of Aadhaar number, but had conceded that one of his takeaways from the episode had been that social media was not a suitable forum to discuss complex policy matters.