Bharti Airtel faces Trai wrath for denying users MNP facility

Bharti Airtel, India's leading telecom services provider, has landed itself in a soup, with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) initiating legal action against the telecom major for denying mobile number porting (MNP) to its subscribers.

Airtel faces the largest number of complaints among all operators for rejecting MNP requests by its subscribers. It has been accused of violating and deviating from complying with MNP regulations.

"Trai has been receiving complaints from customers stating that their porting requests are being wrongly rejected by the donor operators. In this regard, Trai investigated MNP rejections of various service providers, including Bharti Airtel, by sending a team of its officers. On the basis of sample analysis of rejection, the team observed the deviations in compliance with MNP regulations," Trai said in a letter to the department of telecommunications (DoT).

"Bharti Airtel has violated the provisions of MNP regulations. Accordingly, Trai is in the process of taking necessary legal action against Bharti Airtel," the telcom regulator told DoT.

Besides Bharti Airtel, Trai has issued show cause notices to Idea, Loop, Reliance Communications (RCom) and Vodafone. Bharti faces the largest number of complaints at 893 for MNP requests, followed by Vodafone and Idea Cellular. There were 307 complaints against RCom, 149 against Tata Teleservices and 134 complaints against Loop.

Besides Bharti Airtel, other leading operators too, are harassing subscribers.

Assem Manchanda, a Bharti Airtel subscriber has not been able to port his number to Vodafone. "It is almost around a month now. They have refused Aadhar identity card issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India, which is valid as an ID proof by the Trai itself," he said.

"There seems to be some kind of tactical understanding between leading operators on mobile porting. The DoT and the Trai should seriously look into the matter as these operators are taking mobile subscribers for a ride. I have not been able to make calls from my mobile," said aggrieved Manchanda.

Courtesy: Mail Today