Stupid rules: TRAI’s 100 SMS a day trying for many of us

Parents of eight-year-old Adita Purandare are worried. Getting regular updates SMS from Adita’s school is going to be next to impossible now, thanks to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) latest diktat: Mobile phone users can from now on send only 100 text messages a day.

Media professional Amrita Mane too is wondering how she will work with only 100 text messages a day, when she needs to send at least 200 to 300 daily.

The decision, which actually has been taken to restrict millions of messages sent by telemarketing companies, was formally implemented from Tuesday. However, a look at the copy of the Trai directive shows many ambiguities in it.

TRAI chairman JS Sharma said that many essential services, including banks, airlines, financial institutions and even schools and colleges have been exempted from the ban.

“We have not issued a carpet ban for all. The central government is sensitive while taking such crucial decisions. We have exempted four types of services from the restriction, which include schools and colleges," Sharma told DNA. However, there is no specific mention of schools, colleges or even services such as blood banks and hospitals in the directive.
The directive does mention four categories - dealers of the service providers, and DTH operators (who refill prepaid mobile cards with an SMS) and social networking sites. The other two categories mentioned are directory services, such as Justdial, and e-ticketing services providing ticket details to passengers.

While most of the service providers were not ready to comment on the issue, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India Rajan Mathews said that at the moment they are not thinking of action against the directive. "Our policy for the next few days at least will be to wait and watch. We had a meeting with the department of telecom and TRAI a week ago. They have assured us that they may exempt some more categories later. We may approach them in another three to four weeks," he said.

Meanwhile, not just parents but even school managements are a worried lot. Rohit Bhat, principal of Children Academy in Malad, said, "After speaking to our service provider, we have issued a circular to parents stating that they should not register with the 'do not disturb' service, as the school needs to send regular updates by SMS. We do update our website regularly, but it will create a problem for parents who do not have a computer."

Sudeshna Chatterjee, principal of Jamnabai Narsee School, Juhu, said, "We find the bulk SMS system necessary for communicating with parents, especially during emergencies. Now, we will have to rely on e-mails to which parents might not have immediate access."

Many college students relying on text messages are already thinking of other options.

Jayesh Nalawade, a 2nd year MBA student at Sydenham Institute of Management Studies and Research, said, "Bulk SMS is not the only way of communicating with students. There are social networking websites as well, or we can use Google or Yahoo groups."