Kolkata: The telecom regulator has cleared the air on recharge cycles or renewal dates of monthly prepaid tariff plans that telcos were recently mandated to offer, including plan vouchers, special tariff vouchers and combo vouchers.

It has indicated that such mandatory monthly tariff offers will now be renewable either on the same date of the following month, or on the last date of the following month, if a specific date is not available.

“Every telecom service provider shall offer at least one plan voucher (PV), one special tariff voucher (STV) and one combo voucher (CV), which shall be renewable on the same date of every month, and if the date of such renewal is not available in a (particular) month, it shall be the last date of that month,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai<\/a>) said Thursday.

The Trai order will be effective in 60 days, or by end-May.

“In a nutshell, it means that if a mobile user recharges on say, March 30, the next date of renewal would be April 30…but if he\/she has recharged on, say, January 31, the next date of renewal would either be February 28 or February 29 (in case of a leap year) since February is not a 30\/31-day month,” Trai’s advisor (Finance & Economic Analysis) Kaushal Kishore told ET.

Back in January, Trai had mandated that every telco<\/a> must include at least one PV, one STV and one CV with 30-days validity among its tariff offers. But the directive had caused confusion amongst operators who wanted clarity on the relevant renewal dates, especially if consumers recharged a monthly prepaid voucher on the 31st day of a month or say between January 29-to-31, especially since February is not a 30-day month.

In response to telco queries, Trai has deleted a sub-clause in its January 2022 tariff order that had earlier said the relevant PV, STV and CV “would be renewable only on the same date of every month”.
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