Vodafone Idea Pays Highest Penalty For Call Drops In 12 Months
At Rs 6.5 lakh, Reliance Jio paid the minimum penalty for call drops while BSNL and Airtel paid Rs 47.50 lakh and Rs 34 lakh.
A total penalty of around Rs 3.2 crore has been imposed on telecom operators for call drops between September 2018 and June 2019, with more than half of it coming from Vodafone Idea Ltd.
According to the data shared by Minister of State for Communications Sanjay Dhotre in Parliament on Thursday, the highest financial disincentive of Rs 1.76 crore has been imposed on Vodafone Idea—Rs 1.11 crore on Vodafone and Rs 65 crore on Idea—on account of call drops on their networks.
The minimum penalty was levied on Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. at Rs 6.5 lakh.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., Tata Teleservices Ltd. and Bharti Airtel Ltd. were penalised Rs 47.50 lakh, Rs 56 lakh and Rs 34 lakh, respectively.
Dhotre in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha said that in the July-September 2019 period, only BSNL did not meet the benchmark of minimum number of mobile tower functional in a service area, while the rest of the telecom operators were found compliant to the rules.
BSNL also failed to meet network availability criteria in West Bengal and Vodafone Idea in Jammu and Kashmir circle, he added.