India, Sept. 22 -- The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has finalised new rules requiring telecom service providers to offer more Special Tariff Vouchers (STVs) exclusively for voice and SMS, including options across shorter validity periods.

The Telecom Consumers Protection (Thirteenth Amendment) Regulations, 2026, released on 22 September, seek to expand the availability of non-data tariff options for subscribers who primarily use mobile services for voice calls and SMS.

The amendment follows TRAI's observation that the implementation of the Twelfth Amendment to the Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations, 2024 had not resulted in sufficient availability of voice-and-SMS-only STVs across different validity periods. The re...