TelecomLive April-2020

Net Neutrality www.telecomlive.com 47 Telecom LIVE April 2020 members. It should develop / adopt a constitution containing guiding principles for the conduct of the body and its procedures and working meth- ods should be driven by the same. We suggest that adopting a light touch approach, DoT/Trai may prescribe a minimum governance structure which can be adopted by the industry body. Such minimum governance structure may be in line with the governance requirement for a non-profit organization as per Companies Act and Societies Registration Act. Industry body can have a dual governance structure; a Governing Board and an Execu- tive Committee. Governing Board should be an elected body and function as apex committee for the body. It should be responsible for administration and management of the body with its members holding key portfolios related to the same, viz. President/Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, etc. Governing Board will be respon- sible for approving Repository of TMPs, disclosure format, probe reports based on verified incidents, etc. Executive Committee should be the team responsible for day to day execution of strategy / guidelines formed by the Governing Board. It can have a larger membership than the Governing Body to carrying out day to day activities and pro- cesses of body, e.g.: review of TMPs of TSPs/ISPs, conducting probes, preparation of reports, etc. Governing Board can have a varied representation mix from members, end user forum / organization, independent sector advisor and sectoral legal experts; to help develop wider perspective and consider interest of various stakeholders in the sector. Executive Committee can have representation only from the industry body. structure should be tiered, allowing for lower fee for smaller companies when compared with significant members. Industry body should also provide required guidance and support to smaller companies in their effort to abide by TMP obligations. We submit that within the significant members, there should not be any membership category allowing differential author- ity/power to members based on their revenue, type, category, etc. Also, there should not be any fee structure based on any such membership category. Government may identify and recognize an existing not for profit industry body and approve its memorandum and bye-laws. Such recognized industry body should invite major TSPs/ISPs, including those identified by DoT/Trai, to become founding the industry body may be managed by the founding members themselves till addi- tional members join and a membership structure is put in place. It should be given a defined period to develop a TMPs review process, disclosure format and other processes / documents required for carrying out its outlined agenda and operations. Continuing with the light touch approach, DoT should let the industry players become the members and manage the governance of the concerned industry body. Q7. What should be the guiding principles and structure of governance of MSB? What may be the roles and responsibilities of persons at different posi- tions such as chairing the organisation or working groups, governing the functioning, steering the work etc. A7. The governance structure of the industry body should have a transparent and non- discriminatory policy towards its TSPs/ISPs for probe of alleged incident. Upon confirmation, it should also pursue the corrective Measure/penalty as decided by DoT. c. DoT Centric: It should act as an interface between industry and government in providing two-way inputs / requirements of the sector in the given domain. It should also act as test bed for DoT to validate its ideas before issuing any directions for the sector. Q5. Whether entry fee, recurring fee etc for mem- bership need to be uniform for all members or these may be on the basis of different type or category of member- ship? What may be these categories? What policy may be adopted for initial set up of MSB? Q6. What mechanism may be prescribed to determine fee and other contributions from its members towards expenditure in a fair and non-discriminatory manner? A5 & A6. Industry body should be a not for profit body and should collect fees (entry and recurring) from its members to meet only its operational expenses. Maintaining the light touch approach, Authority should leave the determination of fees to the governing body of the body. The fees should cover the actual expense of the body and its annual accounts can be used for determination of the same. To ensure that the fees remain within a reasonable range and doesn't keep on increasing based on increase in scope of activities of the industry body, DoT may consider putting a cap on such membership fee which should be uniformly applicable to all the industry bodies registered or planning to get registered with DoT. We suggest that the fee