For Trai, quality begins at home

Quality is the buzzword for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) these days. It is set to become the first Indian regulator to be certified by the International Standards Organisation (ISO).

"We have been directing telecom operators to improve their quality of service. It is time for some internal reforms," said a senior Trai official.

Partly funded by the World Bank, the Trai project on quality management systems under the ISO-9001:2000 is expected to be completed by June 2004. The regulator has appointed RITES as the consultant.

The Trai project, costing around Rs 2 crore, is part of the $72 million Telecommunications Sector Reform Technical Assistance Project being implemented in India with the assistance of the World Bank. While the World Bank will chip in with $62 million, the balance will come from the Centre.

A Trai official said, "We want to incorporate the best processes within the system. This will include ways for improving efficiency, speeding up decision-making and adopting world-class methods."

That apart, the regulator is outsourcing a number of telecom advisory projects to external agencies, and has decided to seek the assistance of global consultants for evolving policies relating to complex issues like number portability, quality of service, growth of Internet and infrastructure sharing.

The regulator is also working on the guidelines for competition in a multi-services, multi-operator network for stand-alone and integrated operators.

This is estimated to cost around Rs 20 lakh. A committee under D P S Seth, member, Trai, has been set up for selecting a consultant for the project.

Techno-regulatory issues relating to introduction of intelligent network services is another issue that the regulator is grappling with. Bids have been invited for selecting the consultant, at a cost of Rs 11 lakh. Trai has also roped in IMRB for conducting a survey on the quality of service being provided by operators.