In a bid to address the growing furore over increasing call drops, the telecom regulator in the country may shortly recommend the operators to provide compensation to the users for each dropped call.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) may ask the telecom operators to offer a compensation of Rs 1 for each call drop, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The regulator is expected to come out with recommendations on Friday, PTI reported.
In August, Rakesh Garg, secretary at the telecom ministry, had said that the government may also make compensation for call drops as "mandatory" for the telecom operators.
Earlier, TRAI Chairman RS Sharma had said that the regulator would be ready with proposals by mid-October.
The regulator on Thursday said that there was no major progress in addressing the call drop issue in Mumbai and Delhi "as operators are lagging on various fronts in meeting the standards".
TRAI will also issue a "quality of service paper" in the near future to assess the reasons behind the call drops.
Two months ago, the government had asked TRAI to look into the voice tariffs of telcos to verify whether there are any unjustified gains to the telecom companies from call drops.
The government had also told the telecom operators "not to divert spectrum capacity towards profit-intensive data services at the cost of voice calls".
Chief executives of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea and Reliance Communications had cited the "spectrum and tower shortages" as the major reasons behind the increasing call drops. They also demanded a uniform tower policy.
