Telcos may face tighter grievance rules, penalties as user complaints rise

Amid a sharp rise in subscriber complaints, India’s telecom regulator on Thursday proposed stricter grievance redressal norms, including penalties up to ₹50 lakh per quarter per service area on service providers.

According to the draft amendments issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Thursday, operators could initially face fines of ₹1,000 for each improperly dismissed complaint and ₹5,000 for each wrongly disposed appeal if lapses are detected during audits, inspections or regulatory reviews based on quarterly reports and consumer feedback.

The proposed Telecom Consumers Complaint Redressal (Fourth Amendment) Regulations, 2026 mark Trai’s first overhaul of complaint-handling norms in 12 years. This assumes significance as complaints received by the regulator rose 63% to 73,081 in FY26 from 44,733 in FY24, according to Trai data. Complaints stood at 55,978 in FY25.

According to a survey by LocalCircles in December, one in two telecom consumers who registered a grievance in the last three years with their operator said it went unresolved. The survey said 23% of mobile subscribers found filing a complaint with their service provider cumbersome.

“An analysis of these complaints from consumers received, has revealed a dissatisfaction and anguish against the existing grievance redressal mechanism established by the service providers,” Trai said in the draft regulations. “While the measures taken by Trai so far have been, by and large effective, the effort in this regard is a continuous process and requires to be reviewed from time to time to improve the effectiveness of complaint redressal,” it added.

The financial disincentives will act as a deterrent to ensure proper and satisfactory redressal of consumer grievances, the regulator said. The updated rules drop the previous ₹5 crore minimum financial turnover criteria for internet service providers (ISPs). Now, compliance is mandatory for subscribers with a base of over 10,000.

Besides introducing penalties, the regulator has proposed extending the operating hours of telecom complaint centres from the current limited timings to 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Under the draft norms, telecom operators must resolve complaints within three days where no separate timeline exists under quality-of-service rules. Consumers dissatisfied with the resolution can escalate matters to an appellate authority within 15 days, down from the current 30-day window.

If a service provider fails to meet the deadline of submitting the quarterly performance report, a penalty of ₹5,000 per report daily for the first 15 days, and ₹20,000 per report per day thereafter, with a maximum cap of ₹10 lakh per instance has been kept, as per the draft regulations.

The draft further mandates greater transparency on digital platforms, requiring operators to prominently display customer care information, complaint procedures, timelines and escalation mechanisms on websites and mobile applications.

“There is a need for a telecom ombudsman mechanism, which will be fruitful in ensuring strict compliance by operators to handle consumer complaints and resolve them,” said Satya N. Gupta, former principal advisor at Trai. “The regulator should not enter into audit kind of activities but focus on ensuring quality of services,” he said.

Queries emailed to the Cellular Operators Association of India, which represents major private telecom operators, remained unanswered till press time.