Reliance Jio—India's telecom regulator ordered Reliance Jio to end discriminatory tariff plans tied exclusively to its own devices
India's Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) issued a formal direction on March 24, 2026 ordering Reliance Jio to stop offering discounted tariff plans available only on Jio-branded devices (Jio Bharat, Jio Phone) and sold solely through Jio's own retail channels, finding the practice discriminatory and non-transparent under the Telecommunication Tariff Order, 1999. TRAI set an April 14, 2026 deadline for Jio to make the plans device-neutral and available at par across all sales channels; the direction followed a TRAI probe opened in August 2025 into Jio's discontinuation of entry-level prepaid data plans.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer Protection | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.590 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (medium ×1) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
TRAI direction and Indian business press: Jio ordered to end device-exclusive discriminatory tariffs
TRAI's official direction, reported by Livemint and Business Standard, ordered Reliance Jio to stop restricting discounted tariff plans to Jio-branded devices sold only through its own retail channels, and to make the Jio Bharat/Jio Phone offers device-neutral and available at par across channels by April 14, 2026.