Public Grievances

Public Grievances Wing

Department of Telecommunications

Redressal of Public grievances

You may lodge your grievance by clicking HERE 

Indian Telecommunication Sector has undergone a major process of transformation through significant policy reforms, beginning with the announcement of NTP 1994 and carried forward under NTP 1999 and 2012 and National Digital Communication Policy - 2018. Driven by various policy initiatives, the Indian telecom sector witnessed a complete transformation in the last twenty years. As of now, Department of Telecommunications is mainly performing the role of licensor, policy maker and of enforcement of licensing conditions.

1.0 Grievance Redressal Mechanism in Telecom Services Sector

(a) The primary responsibility of addressing the service related, billing, quality of service grievances lies with telecom service provider, which emanates from licensing terms and conditions. As per licensing conditions

            “Any dispute, with regard to the provision of SERVICE shall be a matter only between the aggrieved party and the LICENSEE, who shall duly notify this to all before providing the SERVICE. And in no case the LICENSOR shall bear any liability or responsibility in the matter. The Licensee shall keep the Licensor indemnified for all claims, cost, charges or damages in the matter.”

(b) In order to streamline the process of grievance redressal mechanism by the service providers, TRAI has issued “Telecom Complaint Redressal Regulations 2012”. The complete details of the Telecom Consumer Complaint Redressal Regulations, 2012 are available on TRAI website.

(c) According to this regulation all Telecom Service Providers should set up following two tier grievance redressal mechanism. This replaces the earlier regulations issued by TRAI in 2007. The highlights of the new regulations are: -

(i) Establishment of a Complaint Centre with a toll-free “Consumer Care Number”. The Complaint Centre will be responsible to address all the complaints received by them. Provisions have also to be made at the complaint centre to establish a Customer Care Number which could be accessed from any other service provider’s network.

(ii) Every complaint at the Complaint Center shall be registered by giving a unique docket number, which will remain in the system for at least three months. The docket number along with date and time of registration and the time limit for resolution of the complaint would be communicated to the consumer through SMS. The customer shall also be informed of the action taken through SMS.

(iii) Establishment of an Appellate Authority: Every service provider shall appoint a appellate authority consisting one or more persons to deal with grievances, If a consumer is not satisfied with the redressal of his complaint, or his complaint remains unaddressed or no intimation of redressal of the complaint is received within the specified period, he can approach the Appellate Authority for redressal of his complaints.

(iv) Every service provider shall constitute a two-member Advisory Committee in each of the service areas. This will comprise of one member from the consumer organization registered with TRAI and another member from the service provider. All appeals of the consumers will be put up before the Advisory Committee, which will advise on all such appeals to the Appellate Authority. Individual time-lines have been provided for each stage of processing the appeals.

(d) Accordingly all complainants have to approach to their service providers for redressal of their grievances through “Two Tier Institutionalized Grievances Redressal Mechanism” of the concerned Service Provider established by it under Telecom Consumer Complaint Redressal Regulations, 2012 (1 of 2012) of TRAI issued on 05th January 2012 and amendments thereto. List of consumer care numbers and appellate authority nominated by telecom companies for handling consumer Grievances is available at TRAI website. These Regulations replaces the earlier ‘Telecom Consumers Protection and Redressal of Grievances Regulations, 2007’ on the subject matter with a view to improve the effectiveness of complaints redressal for the telecom consumer by the service provider.

(e) In case complainant is not satisfied with the decision taken by service provider or delay in redressal of grievance at any point of time /stage in the above process, the complainant is free to approach an appropriate court of law/ any other appropriate forum (judicial / quasi - judicial) against the service provider in view of Para 1(a) above

1.1 Grievances relating to unsolicited commercial Calls (UCC):

(a) UCC Regulations

In order to regulate the commercial calls and protect consumer from unsolicited commercial calls and messages UCC), TRAI has notified "The Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2018".The provisions of regulations have come into force from 19th July, 2018.

(b) Brief procedure for blocking UCC

Customers (landline and mobile) who do not want to receive commercial   communications can dial or SMS to 1909 (toll free) and register in either of the two categories:

Fully Blocked Category- stoppage of all commercial Calls/SMS Partially Blocked Category- stoppage of all commercial Calls/SMS     except SMS from one of the opted preferences.

For registering option using SMS, for 'fully blocked category', write "START 0" and send it to 1909. For 'partially blocked category', send SMS 'START' with one or multiple options from the list of seven categories. That means by selecting on one or more of the seven preferences a customer would be able to receive the commercial communication from the selected option(s).

The seven preferences to choose from are: Banking / Insurance / Financial Products / Credit Cards-1, Real Estate-2, Education-3, Health-4, Consumer goods and automobiles-5, Communication/ Broadcasting / Entertainment / IT-6, Tourism-7.

On successful registration, customer will receive an SMS confirming exercised options and a Unique Registration Number within 24 hrs. The registration will be effective within 7 days of placing the request with the service provider. The customers can check the status of their registration by clicking on "Customer Registration Status".

Customer can also change the preferences after three months of registration or the last change of preference.

(i) If customer receives UCC even after 7 days of registration, he can register a complaint with his service provider within 3 days of receipt of such UCC by dialing or sending SMS to 1909. Customers will have to provide the telephone number or header of the message from where the call or message has been received, short description of such call or message along with the date of receipt of call or message.

(ii) For complaint through SMS, customer has to send SMS "the unsolicited commercial communication, XXXXXXXXXX, dd/mm/yy" to 1909. Where XXXXXXXXXX is the telephone number or header of the SMS, from which the UCC has originated. The telephone number or header and the date of receipt of the unsolicited commercial SMS may be appended with such SMS, while forwarding to 1909, with or without space after comma.                      

(iii) Service Provider will take action on complaint and inform the complainant within 7 days of lodging of complaint. Customers may check registration status of his complaint through the link "UCC Complaint Registration Status".

(iv) In case of unresolved complaint/grievance from service providers, complainant can approach TRAI for resolution of his grievance. As per above mentioned TRAI Regulation, TRAI is competent to take action against the concerned service providers for the violations; under section 21 and 22 of the said Regulations.

2. Public Grievance Cell in DoT

However, in case a grievance is not redressed even after exhausting the procedure as prescribed above, an individual complainant without prejudice to his right to approach an appropriate Court of Law, may approach Public Grievance Cell of Department of Telecommunications (DoT), 607, Mahanagar Door Sanchar Bhawan, Old  Minto Road, J. L. Nehru Marg, New Delhi 110002 along with all documentary evidence(s) for non-redressal of his grievance at concerned Service Provider level . He may submit grievance in either of the following ways:

(a) Complainants are advised to use web portal for registering their grievance, so that the processing thereof may be monitored in a transparent; user friendly and structured manner.

(b) The grievances registered in the web portal; without following the prescribed procedure (as described above) may not be processed

(c) Any grievance sent by e-mail shall not be attended to/entertained

(d) (i) The complaint so registered is forwarded to the concerned service provider / subordinate organization(s) and / or to the concerned unit in DoT with an advice to take appropriate action in the matter and to inform the complainant regarding the action taken towards the redressal of grievance.

      (ii) Complaint / grievances on UCC received in PG cell of DoT are forwarded to TRAI for appropriate action as TRAI is the competent authority to take action in such complaints as per the Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2018.

(e) The grievance is to be redressed by concerned service provider/ concerned forwarded organizations only. PG Cell of DoT acts only as a facilitator in the redressal process and is not vested with any powers to penalize the service provider for not redressing the grievance to the satisfaction of the complainant or for delay in redressing the grievance

(f) In case complainant is not satisfied with the decision taken by service provider or delay in redressal of grievance at any point of time /stage in the above process, the complainant is free to approach an appropriate court of law/ any other appropriate forum against the service provider in view of Para 1(a) above. 

Details of Officers in PG Section 

[Directors from 10:00 AM. to 01:00 PM. every day and DDG (PG) during 02:30 PM to 04:30 PM on every Wednesday are available for visitors]

PG system in PSU’s

Telecom services are being provided in the country by Government PSUs viz. MTNL/BSNL & Private service providers. These companies are having their own consumer grievances redressal mechanism which is primarily responsible for redressal of all types of complaints of their consumers. The Nodal Officer at headquarter level in respect of the PSUs providing telecom services are:

BSNL:  G.M (CDN), Room No 27, IR Hall, Eastern Court, BSNL Corporate Office, Janpath New Delhi-110001. Contact No. 011-23717055, Fax No. 011-23312021, e-mail id: ddgpg[at]bsnl[dot]co[dot]in

MTNL:  G.M. (Operations), Room No. 6401, 6^th Floor, MTNL Corporate Office, Door Sanchar Sadan, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi –110003. Contact No. 011-24323618, Fax No. 011- 24329422, e-mail id: mtnlpg[at]bol[dot]net[dot]in

4) Other related matters

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) an independent legal entity, was established to regulate the telecommunication services and discharge the various functions. Two important functions which are in the ambit of TRAI are as follows:

(a) To ensure compliance of terms and conditions of license this includes customer services, Tariff

(b) To lay down the standards of quality of service to be provided by the service providers and to ensure the quality of service and to conduct the periodical survey of such service provided by the service providers so as to protect interest of the consumers of telecommunication services;

The compilation of the measures taken by TRAI to protect consumer’s interest is available at the TRAI’s website. TRAI has notified a number of Directions / Regulations / Guidelines to address the major issues related to interest of telecom consumer’s including the following: 

1. Quality of Service (code of practice on metering and billing accuracy) Regulation, 2006 on 21^stMarch 2006; for protecting the interest of consumers relating to metering and billing.
2. Quality of Service (time period of resolution of billing complaints, refund of dues/security deposits to consumers, rectification of calls, rebate in rent for delayed rectification of faults etc.) of Basic and Cellular Mobile Telephone Services, Regulations on 1^stJuly 2005 and reviewed thereafter on 20^th March 2009.
3. Direction of 16^thSeptember 2005 regarding not to offer / market / advertise in a manner that is likely to mislead the consumers.
4. Guidelines to Telecom Service Providers regarding Collection of dues by outsourced agencies engaged by them on 16^thNovember 2007; for addressing the concerns of consumers relating to collection of dues. 

The compliance of above Directions / Regulations is monitored by TRAI. Whenever deficiencies / violation of TRAI Orders / Directions / Regulations are noticed, TRAI takes up the issue with the concerned Service Provider for remedial action. However, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act 1997 does not envisage redressal of individual complaints by TRAI.  

Note: TRAI regulation, other Act and regulation based on which this write up has been proposed are only given in brief here. Consumers are advised to refer these regulations for complete details.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ON GRIEVANCE REDRESS MECHANISM IN DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS OF GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, NEW DELHI.