TRAI: Full talk time on recharges

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has directed telecom operators to waive off the processing charge on the top-up cards of recharges, resulting in full talk time.

Prepaid mobile subscribers will henceforth, have to pay just an administrative fee not exceeding Rs two per recharge and other applicable taxes, TRAI said.

TRAI said that it has come to its notice that telecoms are deducting a fixed amount even for recharges exclusively meant for providing talk time to subscribers who already have validity.

The telecom regulator felt that levy of a second processing fee when the customer buys talk time through exclusive top-ups is unjustified as such subscribers had already obtained validity by paying a fixed fee.

TRAI is taking initiatives for making the telecom service more consumers friendly and transparent.

This is one among many initiates taken by the regulator in its latest policy directives for telecom operators.

The other policy directives given by TRAI includes asking operators to make the tariff related information available in regional languages also, other than English.

Moreover, existing customers on the lifetime plans can now migrate to new lifetime plans with lower entry fee without having to make additional payment or recharges.

I think people will now migrate to prepaid from postpaid and get their deposits back :P My uncle had paid Rs.3000 deposit (8yrs back) for postpaid connection and was not able to convert to prepaid because they said number the would change. Now number would remain the same, so he should be happy.

I am already getting full talktime on Rs.555 recharge of Vodafone. But this is still a great step taken as now i would be able to recharge from small amount without having to care about processing charges :happydanc