IANS/New Delhi
The government has imposed Rs10.80cr penalty on telecom service providers till May 31 this year for violating prescribed limits of radiation from mobile towers, the parliament was informed on Friday.
The maximum penalty of Rs2.15cr was imposed on Bharti Airtel followed by Rs1.80cr on Vodafone, communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.
Noting the total number of mobile Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) setup at mobile towers in the country, as on May 31, are 9,08,353, he said the number of BTSs found exceeding radiation limits prescribed by Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on actual testing till May were six - as against 103 in 2012-13, 77 in 2013-14 and zero in 2014-15.
Prasad said the penalty for violation of actual EMF radiation norms has been increased from Rs5 lakh to Rs10 lakh per BTS per incidence. Instructions in this regard were issued on January 20, 2013.
In order to ensure compliance to the prescribed norms of EMF radiation from mobile towers, the extensive audit of self-certificates being submitted by telecom service providers and BTS sites is carried out by Telecom Enforcement Resource & Monitoring (TERM) field units of DoT.
“In case, any BTS site is found to violate the prescribed EMF norms, actions are taken to put a penalty of Rs10 lakh per BTS per incidence including closing of BTS site, if the violation persists. Additionally, the BTS sites against which there are public complaints are also tested by TERM Cell,” the minister said.
India’s telecom regulator TRAI yesterday made it mandatory for telecom operators to issue notices in form of USSD or SMS about data usage to its customers at regular intervals.
Mobile network operators now need to send information about the usage to data users at every 10MB of data consumption except customers opting for special schemes like add-on packs, combo offers and others. The consumers are to be provided with an option to opt out if they do not desire to receive such information.
For customers using special data packs, the operator has to compulsorily inform the customer whenever the limit of data usage reaches 50%, 90% and full exhaustion of the allotted data limit.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) also ordered the operators to intimate customers when the data balance available in the account reaches 500 MB, 100 MB and 10MB.
“Further the consumer shall be informed about the details of tariff applicable after exhausting the data limit, when the data limit reaches 90% or the data balance available in the account reaches 10MB,” TRAI said in a note.
Operators also need to send an alert to international roaming customer cautioning the person to deactivate data service if one does not intend to use data services.
TRAI ordered the service providers to implement the same by November 1 this year.
The regulator further said data services should be activated only with the explicit consent of the subscriber through a toll free short code - 1925. The same short code can be used to deactivate the data services as well.
“Data services through Special Tariff Voucher or Combo Voucher or add-on pack will be deemed to have been activated with consent till the expiry of the validity period of the voucher/pack or on the consumption of entire data, whichever is earlier,” said the TRAI notification.
Additionally, the customers also needs to be informed through SMS at periodic intervals about the prescribed procedure for deactivation of data.
The regulator said it has been receiving several complaints from consumers regarding non-availability of information relating to the amount of data used during a data session.
