Trai proposes Rs 10,000 fine for every unlawful MNP rejection

New Delhi, Aug 3 (PTI) Acting on numerous complaints, telecom regulator Trai today proposed a penalty of Rs 10,000 on telecom operators for every unlawful rejection of subscriber request for change of service provider. "... the Authority has decided to amend the regulations to incorporate provisions for levying financial disincentives where contravention is established in rejection of porting requests and also in the timelines specified in regulations," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said in a statement. India in 2010 introduced Mobile Number Portability (MNP) that allows a subscriber to shift to another operator while retaining their number. At the end of June 2012, over 54 million subscribers have requested to change their service providers using this facility. Trai proposed to levy penalty (as financial disincentive) of Rs 10,000 in the cases where contravention from rules is established in rejection of porting request by telecom operators from whose network subscribers want to shift to network of other operator. The regulator has proposed to incorporate penalty provision of Rs 5,000 in the cases where contravention of regulation is established in the timelines for acting on various steps involved in process of MNP. These provisions will be part on new chapter,Financial Disincentives For Contravention Of The Provisions Of The Regulations, which TRAI has proposed to insert in to existing MNP regulation. This amendment in the MNP regulation will be open for public comments till August 13, statement said.