Airtel gets most complaints

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel tops the list of customer complaints receipts regarding billing and service-related issues. There were 3,571 complaints filed in the last three years against the company, the minister of state for communications Sachin Pilot said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

"Trai (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has been receiving complaints against telecom service providers, alleging various problems which include billing, metering and tariff-related issues and activation of chargeable value-added services without explicit consent of the customer," Pilot informed the Lok Sabha.

Reliance Communications was second on the list with 2,151 complaints registered from Reliance customers against the company. Other telecom major Vodafone received 1,896 complaints. Tata Docomo and Idea Cellular were on the bottom of the chart with 1,239 and 925 complaints, respectively. The total number of complaints received during the last three years stood at 10,561. The regulator has forwarded these complaints to the concerned service providers for appropriate action. Trai has notified the Telecom Consumers Protection and Redressal of Grievances Regulations, 2007 for redressal of grievances of telecom consumers.

According to Trai, the number of unsatisfied mobile phone users crossed 38 lakh by end of February, with Gujarat reporting the highest number of customers willing to change their service providers through mobile number portability (MNP) Service.

As per the data reported by the service providers to Trai, by the end of February 2011, about 38.33 lakh subscribers had submitted their requests to different service providers for porting (shifting) their mobile numbers. Out of these, around 3.20 lakh pertains to Haryana where MNP was implemented on November 25, 2010.

In Northern and Western India, the maximum number of requests werereceived in Gujarat at 3.65 lakh, followed by Rajasthan at 3.14 lakh requests, said the statement issued by Trai. In Southern and Eastern India the maximum number of requests were in Karnataka (3.18 lakh), followed by Tamil Nadu (2.76 lakh).

Courtesy: Mail Today