The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has reiterated its recommendations on “Telecom Network Failures during Emergencies! Disasters- Priority routing of calls of persons engaged in 'response and recovery'” stating that the provision for priority call routing (PCR) for the persons involved in the rescue and relief operations is the requirement of the government and not of the telecom service providers (TSP).. Therefore, the expenditure for the same should be borne by the government.

TRAI had given its recommendations in November 2013. Thereafter, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had formed a committee to examine the recommendations. In November 2014, DoT forwarded the report of committee to TRAI for comments from the latter.

DoT is of the view that the costs involved in setting up separate networks which are not part of the TSP's networks and the associated expenses, should be funded and overseen by the government. Meanwhile, the TSPs are required to upgrade and provide necessary configurations, provisioning, connectivity and roaming arrangements as per the licence conditions and no cost is to be incurred by government.

TRAI is of the view that TSPs design their networks based on traffic and commercial considerations. Therefore, they do not take into account the situation involved in rescue and relief operations. TRAI has also reiterated its recommendation for implementing a PCR scheme across the entire network, under which the operators’ cost incurred during relief operations should be reimbursed. The regulator has also reiterated other recommendations regarding the formation of steering committee, intra circle roaming pacts, formulation of national telecom emergency plans among others.