"Examine the role of TRAI as a sectoral regulator in the context of the Telecommunications Act, 2023." (10 m)

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is a statutory body set up under the TRAI Act, 1997. It regulates a sector that had 1,092.79 million internet subscribers by March 2026 [1]. The Telecommunications Act, 2023 replaced the Telegraph Act, 1885 [2]. It keeps TRAI but moves the main regulatory powers to the Union government.

Core role of TRAI

• Tariff regulation of telecom services [3].
• Recommendations to the Centre on when to bring in new service providers and on licence terms [3].
• Quality of Service standards to protect consumers [3].
• Market transparency: it publishes performance indicators that show gaps such as urban tele-density of 151.47% against rural 60.46% [1].
• Adjudication kept separate: TDSAT hears appeals against TRAI's directions and disputes between licensor and licensee [3].

What the 2023 Act changes

• Authorisation from the Centre replaces licensing for networks, services and radio equipment [2].
• Spectrum is assigned by auction. It is assigned administratively for satellite services, defence, and BSNL/MTNL [2].
• TRAI appointments: people with 30 years of professional experience can now be Chairperson, and with 25 years, members [3].
• USOF is renamed Digital Bharat Nidhi and can now fund R&D [2].
• Civil penalties: an adjudicating officer decides them, then a Designated Appeals Committee, then TDSAT [3].

Concerns for TRAI's regulatory autonomy

• The Centre now holds authorisation, spectrum assignment, standard-setting and breach inquiries. In power and finance, these functions are given to CERC and SEBI [3].
• So TRAI is mostly left as a tariff-and-advisory body. The Executive is both policymaker and operator-regulator, and it also owns BSNL.
• Self-reported data is weak: Airtel left out its M2M SIMs, which distorted year-on-year comparisons [1].

Way forward

• Make consultation with TRAI mandatory before spectrum and authorisation decisions.
• Hand technical standard-setting to TRAI, following the CERC/SEBI model [3].
• Set standard reporting rules, such as listing M2M SIMs separately from human users [1].

TRAI is still the sector's watchdog on prices and quality, and its main source of data. However, the 2023 Act makes it a junior partner to DoT. Giving TRAI real decision-making powers, and keeping it at arm's length from government, would make regulation more credible. It would also protect consumers and support SDG 9 on resilient digital infrastructure.