The Parliamentary standing committee on IT and telecom has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to clarify the method adopted to calculate the interconnect usage charges and whether it has shared relevant data with consumer advocacy groups in order to protect consumer interest.

At a meeting held with senior officials from the department of telecom and Trai, the standing committee raised a number of questions on the way interconnect norms and access deficit charges have been finalised.

"A perusal of the consultation paper reveals that Trai has received ample feedback from basic and cellular operators. But nowhere has a mention of consumer advocacy groups been made," the committee points out in a discussion paper.

The standing committee has also asked Trai to explain the rationale behind imposing an access deficit charge on telecom services to make basic services affordable.

"How can anyone be convinced that the claimed losses for the rural network are not on account of inefficiencies or the absence of a business-like approach? Why an access deficit charge has to be levied in addition to the recovery from the universal services fund?" the paper asks.

The committee says while Trai had asked operators to separate the accounts based on various types of telecom services on December 28 last year, the interconnect usage charge regulation was made public on January 24 this year.

"Is it not surprising that Trai had been able to invite, receive and analyse the data on the network's elementary costs from various service providers within a space of even less than one month before it declared the IUC regulation," the committee observes.

Senior Trai officials said they had given all the clarifications sought by the Parliamentary committee. They said its plan to implement a reworked IUC regime would not be impacted by the Parliamentary committee observations.

The committee has also asked Trai whether the data provided by operators have been audited. It has also highlighted an allegation that when MTNL and BSNL were corporatised, the asset values transferred to them were at grossly inflated valuations and did not reflect the depreciated costs.