By IANS
New Delhi : Indian telecom watchdog TRAI Friday asked all the leading telecom operators to refund the excess money, which has accrued to them by overcharging the subscribers, for setting up a consumer protection and education fund.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has also directed all the leading telecom providers, who might have charged the consumers any amount in excess of the rates of the service provided by them, to transfer the money to the credit of the Telecommunication Consumers Education and Protection Fund created by TRAI.
According to the body, various telecom companies have around Rs.100 million undisbursed amount accumulated over the last 10 years.
"A significant amount of these excess money could not be refunded to the consumers for different reasons by the concerned service providers and accordingly, such moneys are lying with the service providers in separately earmarked accounts," TRAI said in a statement here.
The expenditure by the Telecommunication Consumers Education and Protection Fund would be made on the recommendations of a committee consisting of the representatives of the service providers and the consumers' organisations to ensure transparency.
TRAI also said the money would be spent in undertaking programmes aimed at consumers' education to conduct studies and market research and to organise seminars, symposia and workshops on the subject of consumer welfare and consumer education in the field of telecommunication.
It said education would help in creating mass awareness among the millions of telecom users across India for their rights and avoid events of excess charging of rates by the service providers due to fast changes taking place in the telecommunication sector.