3 months ago
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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) connected Thursday (February 5, 2026) issued the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services Interconnection (Addressable Systems) (Seventh Amendment) Regulations, 2026, pursuing consultations with stakeholders.
“During assorted interactions with the Authority, the stakeholders had highlighted the request for improving audit related provisions successful the Interconnection Regulations 2017 (as amended) and the audit manual; reducing repetitive audits of DPOs (Distribution Platform Operators), resulting successful assets wastage, operational disruption, and diminished stakeholders’ assurance successful the audit process; and incorporating provisions related to infrastructure sharing successful the audit framework,” said TRAI.
They besides sought measures to heighten the accountability of auditors and categorising auditors based connected their acquisition to guarantee credibility of auditors.
Based connected the consultations, TRAI finalised the amendment regulations. The salient features include: Clearly defined timelines for audits; wherein distributors person to behaviour audit and taxable audit study to broadcasters by September 30 each year; Audit is to beryllium done connected fiscal twelvemonth ground successful spot of calendar year; and Broadcasters tin depute their typical during audit to guarantee transparency and credibility of the audit process.
“If broadcasters find inadequacies/discrepancies successful audit report, they tin question clarifications from the auditor done DPO. Auditors indispensable clarify the aforesaid successful a time-bound manner. If broadcaster is not satisfied with these clarifications, it tin get the audit conducted astatine its ain cost, aft obtaining support of the Authority. In lawsuit a broadcaster does not person the audit study by September 30 from the distributor, it tin origin audit of specified a distributor,” said TRAI.
The request of yearly audit astatine DPOs outgo has been made optional for distributors with less than 30,000 subscribers. However, broadcasters tin get specified DPOs audited astatine broadcasters’ cost. The amended audit manual volition beryllium issued successful alignment with the updated regulatory model shortly.
The amendments are aimed astatine ensuring enhanced credibility and accountability successful the audit process and trim the instances of repetitive audits without compromising stakeholder trust.
