TRAI issues “Telecom Consumers Protection (Twelfth Amendment) Regulations, 2024” and “Telecommunication Tariff (Seventieth Amendment) Order, 2024”

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued “Telecom Consumers Protection (Twelfth Amendment) Regulations, 2024 and “Telecommunication Tariff (Seventieth Amendment) Order, 2024”. The salient features of the regulations are as under:

1. To mandate separate Special Tariff Voucher (STV) for Voice & SMS to give consumers an option to pay for the services they require in general and to provide benefit to certain segments of consumers especially the elderly persons and those living in rural areas;
2. The cap on validity period for STV and Combo Vouchers (CV) has been increased from existing ninety (90) days to three hundred and sixty-five (365) days for the benefit of consumer.
3. Colour coding of vouchers as it exists in the physical form has been done away with in view of the prominence of online re-charges;
4. The reserving of denomination of ₹10/- and multiple thereof only for top-up voucher has been done away with, while retaining mandate of at least one Top Up voucher of denomination of ₹10/- provided by TTO (50th amendment) Order 2012.