The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today directed Reliance Communications (RCom) to refund the unspent balance of prepaid mobile subscribers and security deposit of postpaid subscribers pursuant to the closure of 2G GSM, CDMA and discontinuation of voice services in all the licensed services areas. RCom closed its 2G services in eight circles and CDMA services in nine circles.
Right after the closure of 2G GSM and CDMA service, Trai received a large number of complaints from the subscribers of RCom who have either ported out or still not ported out from their network, regarding the refund of balance amount left with RCom in the form of recharges or voucher plans. Earlier, Trai asked RCom to share the unspent balance details, and today, it has directed to refund the amount.
For prepaid subscribers, RCom is directed to refund of the unspent balance as per the following methods:
- Refund of unspent balance to prepaid subscribers ported out.
- Refund of unspent balance to prepaid subscribers not ported out.
- Refund of unspent balance to prepaid subscribers who neither ported out nor submitted the bank information or claim for refund.
In the first method, RCom is directed to prepare a list of all the prepaid subscribers who ported out, recipient operator wise, indicating against each subscriber the unspent balance in their account at the time of porting and transfer such unspent amount to the recipient operator along with the list. The recipient operator shall credit the refund amount received from RCom to individual accounts of the subscribers and intimate the same to such subscribers through SMS.
Secondly, for the refund of unspent balance to prepaid subscribers not ported out, RCom has been directed to obtain bank details form the subscribers along with IFSC Code and refund the unspent balance electronically, into the bank accounts of the subscribers by February 15, 2018, after verifying the credentials of the subscribers based on the submitted Proof of Identity (PoI) and Proof of Address (PoA).
And lastly the refund of unspent balance to prepaid subscribers who neither ported out nor submitted the bank information or claim for refund. In this case, Trai directed RCom to refund to the prepaid mobile subscribers, having an unspent balance of not less than Rs 10 in their prepaid mobile account, by means of a crossed cheque at their postal address.
For the uninitiated, RCom announced the closure of 2G GSM services in eight circles- Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, UP (East), UP (West), Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala licensed service areas with effect from December 1, 2017.
And on November 1, 2017, RCom further informed Trai regarding the discontinuation of its CDMA services and upgrading the network from CDMA to LTE in 800 MHz band, with effect from December 1, 2017, in nine circles: Delhi, Rajasthan, UP (West), Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, West Bengal, Gujarat and Kolkata.
