Sharma-led Trai came up with recommendations around net neutrality, which underlined free and non-discriminatory access to the web, which have since been included in the telecom licence conditions. In 2016, Trai banned Facebook’s Free Basics service, which offered users free and limited access to the internet, saying it violated the principles of net neutrality. Sharma was instrumental in tightening norms around quality of services and reining in pesky calls and text messages.
“Sharma had presided over a turbulent period but lent statesman-like fortitude and dignity to his role… and a testimony to this is his being offered a second tenure,” Das said.
According to former VSNL chairman BK Syngal, the telecom sector consolidation during Sharma’s tenure was not in the way it was meant to be and was the result of infirmities in regulation.
“One hopes the new Trai chairman will ensure fairness and remove regulatory uncertainty to restore the confidence of big-ticket investors in India’s telecom sector,” said Syngal.
A 1978 batch IAS officer, Sharma was appointed Trai chairman in August 2015 and his term was extended by two years in 2018, a day before he was to demit office. It was the first time that a Trai chairman was given a second term since the inception of the regulator in 1997. https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com
