New Delhi: The telecom regulator has directed Reliance Jio, the country’s largest telco by market share, to stop certain tariff practices it flagged as “violating” transparency and “discriminatory”, according to a letter seen by Mint.
Jio, which has over 500 million subscribers, told the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) that it was in compliance with the regulator's guidelines, and the tariff plans offered are based on “intelligible criteria”, and cannot be treated as discriminatory.
The service provider has been given time till 14 April to comply with two directions. First, Jio has to publish and make available all tariff offerings, including the three special tariff vouchers— ₹249, ₹199 and ₹209—at all its platforms such as retail stores, customer care centres, website and app. Second, it has to restructure its exclusive Jio Bharat and Jio Phone tariff offerings to make them available for all other devices as well.
JioBharat and JioPhone are low-cost 4G feature phones from Reliance Jio that come with special recharge plans.
Trai's 24 March directive follows a probe in August 2025 into Jio’s discontinuation of certain entry-level prepaid recharge plans offering 1 GB data per day, which the operator had said were available only through its own retail stores.
The probe found that special tariff vouchers (STVs) priced at ₹249 and ₹199 were available only through Jio Stores, while a ₹209 STV was accessible only via the MyJio mobile application.
The regulator also flagged device-specific tariffs which are restricted to JioPhone and JioBharat users as a “violation of the principle of non-discrimination”, and asked it to make the offers available across all devices at par with its other tariff offers.
“…the Authority, vide letter dated 4 November 2025, informed M/s RJIL (Reliance Jio) that the STVs, mentioned, are available only on Jio Stores or MyJio app and not across all the platforms, as directed by the Authority, which amounts to violation of regulatory principle of transparency in communication of tariff,” Trai said in the letter.
The letter addressed to Reliance Jio Infocomm managing director Pankaj Mohan Pawar said the non-offering of special tariff vouchers across all platforms was also a non-compliance with its direction on 18 September 2020, which calls on operators to publish tariff plans on all platforms for users.
Queries emailed to Reliance Jio and Trai on Friday remained unanswered.
According to Trai’s letter, Jio told the regulator in November last year thatthe 2020 directions were “issued by the Authority strictly on tariff publication and not on how and where the tariffs should be sold”.
The company, with a 39.3% mobile subscriber market share as of December end, also claimed that certain offers, such as first-time recharges and postpaid plans, could not be sold online.
On JioBharat tariff plans, the company told Trai that these plans are not available to any other class of Jio users using other devices and thus, this distinction is not “arbitrary” as it based on the “‘intelligible” criteria.
Trai rejected these arguments, stating that publication and availability of tariffs are “inherently interconnected” and cannot be treated separately.
“Availability of tariff offers and STV/CV/add-on packs on all the platforms is imperative as such non-availability compels the customer to visit a specific outlet for availing one service plan and another outlet for another offer, which is not in the spirit of Telecommunication Tariff Order, 1999 and the Direction dated 18 September 2020,” Trai told Jio.
The regulator also noted that Jio's defence regarding first-time recharges is only valid for the initial collection of a physical SIM card.
On the device-specific tariffs, Trai said although Jio has submitted Jio Bharat and Jio Phone as a segment, these tariffs are not being reported to the authority under the monthly segment report being submitted by the operator.
“The device-specific tariffs are treated as discriminatory and disadvantageous to the consumers as the offered tariff plans can be accessed only upon purchase of particular make/technology device,” the regulator said, adding that binding the consumer with a particular telecom operator till the lifetime of the device, effectively removing the mobile number portability option from the consumers, is discriminatory.
In September last year, Mint reported that, post the discontinuation of the cheapest 1GB entry-level mobile plans by Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, the regulator had launched a probe into the matter.
Under the Trai Act, 1997, failure to comply with the Authority’s directions can attract a fine of up to ₹1 lakh for the first offence and up to ₹2 lakh for a second or subsequent offence. In case of continued non-compliance, an additional penalty of up to ₹2 lakh may be imposed for every day the default continues.
