• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Govt pulled up for `haste' over TRAI Ordinance

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, Nov. 22

THE Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by Mr Somnath Chatterjee, has criticised the `unusual haste' with which the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) (Amendment) Ordinance was promulgated.

In its report tabled in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, the committee said that the Ordinance was hastily promulgated on January 24, although Parliament was to meet in February for the Budget session.

None of the reasons offered by the Department for such haste in the promulgation of the Ordinance has been accepted by the committee. It concluded that the Ordinance was issued in haste and without any justification and precluded it from giving its views before the amendments were made.

The committee said that while the Ordinance was promulgated on January 24, TRAI was actually reconstituted on April 30, 2000 and the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) had not been constituted till the end of August.

The committee also did not appreciate the idea that the Ordinance was passed to make the private sector participation more vigorous in view of the poor and dismal performance of the private sector basic service providers.

It also noted that under the TRAI Act, some of the important functions such as measures to facilitate competition and promote efficiency in the operation of telecommunication service have been kept under the category of recommendatory functions.

Though the committee appreciated the Government's final say in matters of issuance and revocation of licence, it has failed to understand the rationale of keeping other functions like measures to facilitate competition and growth or promote efficiency wi thin the recommendatory category, the report said.

``It is pertinent to note that no substantial power has been conferred upon TRAI which, despite being an independent regulatory authority, cannot take a final decision on important matters.''

``Although TRAI has been vested with important regulatory powers, in reality it would feel handicapped in taking the defaulters to task,'' the committee said, while urging the Government to consider empowering TRAI.

The committee also held that limiting the powers of Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) in the matter of auditing some of the important functions of TRAI such as tariff setting and regulating revenue-sharing arrangement would amount to the regulator be coming non-accountable even to Parliament.