A consumer outreach programme was organised by TRAI at the Nongtalang College, West Jaintia Hills today to apprise the public about its initiatives to safeguard consumer interests.
All telecom service providers participated in the programme.
CCA, NE-I, Department of Telecom G. Shabong who was the chief guest highlighted the importance and necessity of such awareness events in remote and faraway places like Nongtalang. She asked the students to be free to voice their opinion and problems about network connectivity during the program so that the problems may be addressed effectively.
Principal of the college, Dr Ryan Reid Kharkongor highlighted the importance of good mobile connectivity in the college area and requested the service providers to maintain good connectivity in future. As of now, there is limited availability of the mobile network in the area and no fixed line connectivity.
Amlarem SDPO, D. Pandey urged the student community present in the event to come up with their honest feedback about the network connectivity in the area. Such genuine feedback would help TRAI and other stakeholders to address the problems, he said.
A presentation on cybercrime and cyber security measures was also presented by Pandey. He highlighted the dos and don’ts on the part of the citizens to safeguard themselves from falling prey to cybercrime related traps.
A presentation on USOF projects, including Bharat Net and 4G Saturation projects in Meghalaya was presented by A. Das, O/o CCA TRAI. The presentation showed the status of the USOF projects in the state.
A presentation was also made on Sanchar Saathi portal (sancharsaathi.gov.in) a citizen centric portal developed by DOT, which dealt with various tools such as “Chakshu” (Fraud communication) CEIR (Lost or stolen mobile), TAFCOP (No. of mobile connection) etc, which are part of Sanchar Saathi portal.
Participants were educated about the provisions of different consumer centric regulations, directions and orders relating to Value Added Services (VAS), Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC), Mobile Number Portability (MNP), Complaint Redressal Mechanism, Data services and Tariff etc. Participants were also informed about the benefits of various Mobile apps (TRAI My Speed app, TRAI DND 3.0 app and TRAI My call app), Tariff portal and Network coverage maps developed by TRAI for consumer empowerment and how consumers can take advantage of these apps /portal.
Various recommendations made by TRAI to facilitate growth of telecommunication and about TRAI’s new regulations/ Directions on UCC and how they should be extra careful about different telecom frauds like tower fraud, fraudulent message/ calls etc were briefed to the participants.
