The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is planning to set up the post of a Telecom Ombudsman to deal with consumer complaints and grievances on poor quality telephony services, the Minister of State for telecom Sanjay Dhotre told Lok Sabha Wednesday. The ombudsman will be the third level of authority which users can approach, if their complaints on poor quality service is not heard by the telecom services providers. The first level is the complaint centre of the respective telcos, whereas the second level is the appellate authority, which decides on the users’ complaints within 39 days. “In case a grievance is not redressed even after exhausting the two tier procedure as prescribed by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the complainant may approach Public Grievance wing of Department of Telecommunications (DoT), along with all documentary evidence(s) for non-redressal of grievance at concerned service provider level,” Dhotre told Lok Sabha. The concept of a telecom ombudsman was first floated by TRAI in late 2017, after which the Telecom Commission had cleared the proposal in 2018. However, there have been no developments on that front after that, despite repeated reminders sent to the DoT from TRAI. Dhotre response on Wednesday came on a specific question seeking the number of complaints against telecom service providers, and as to what action was taken against them. In his reply, Dhotre said that until September 2019, a total of 30,131 user complaints had been received, led by Vodafone Idea, which had as many as 12,849 aggrieved subscribers.
