The Indian government’s Ministry of Communications (DoT) has released the draft of the Indian Telecommunication Bill, 2022, to revamp the legal framework for governing the telecom sector and make it “future-ready”. The ministry will be accepting comments on the bill till October 20, 2022. One can send their comments to the following email address— naveen.kumar71@gov.in. There were signs that the government was working on a new framework after it released a consultation paper in July 2022. You can read Medianama’s summary of the paper here. Why it matters: The bill addresses some of the issues, flagged by the telecom industry in the past, by modernising a regulatory framework which dates back to the colonial era. The provisions in the bill are likely to far-reaching implications on the functioning of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) which plays a critical role in the sector as its watchdog. What does the bill say on TRAI? The bill has proposed the following amendments in the TRAI Act, 1997. It has moved to delete the following provisions from Section 11(1) of the Act: Second Third Fourth Fifth What are these provisions: A cursory reading of the Act reveals that Section 11 of the Act deals with the functions of the TRAI. The regulator had the responsibility of making recommendations on the following matters under this section— Second proviso: Terms and conditions of licence to a service provider; Third proviso: Revocation of licence for non-compliance of terms and conditions of licence; Fourth proviso: Measures…
