Prepaid top-up vouchers get costlier

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Thursday approved hiking the processing fee for mobile recharges above Rs.20 by 50 per cent which is likely to affect over 90 per cent of the mobile subscribers across the country who are pre-paid users.

India has over 900 million subscribers.

"TRAI has today (Thursday) issued amendments to the Telecommunication Tariff Order (TTO) enhancing the ceiling on processing fee from Rs.2 to Rs.3 for certain category of top-up vouchers," the regulator said in its statement.

Top-up vouchers are used by mobile prepaid subscribers for addition of monetary value to their account.

Currently a ceiling of Rs.2 is applicable on top-ups which provide monetary value.

After issue of this amendment, the processing fee applicable for top-up vouchers with denominations having maximum retail price below Rs.20 would remain the same.

Denominations having maximum retail price of Rs.20 or more, Rs.3 will be ceiling.

The authority has also mandated that all the service providers would ensure availability of Rs.10 denomination as top-up voucher.

Earlier Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) had requested TRAI to hike the quantum of fee they were taking from customers.