ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a case study of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to showcase the transformation of India’s centralized bureaucratic state into a federal regulatory state from a micro perspective. It highlights the significant changes in both India’s mixed economy and union executive-driven political system brought about by economic liberalization/privatization/globalization. The central question raised here is as to how some aspects of neoliberal capitalist reforms are affecting the federal state (in relation to the provincial states, civil society and market). The neoliberal capitalist reform in India since 1991 brought about a paradigm shift. Economic liberalization and globalization have led to the creation of a range of autonomous and civil judicial regulatory authorities in various sectors of national and state economies, replacing a great deal of direct ministerial or bureaucratic control of the economy. The early parliamentary enactments such as TRAI Act 1997, amended in 2000, did not grant much security of tenure to the regulator. This, however, changed in subsequent acts, where the security of tenure was greater with more autonomy given. The various regulatory reforms have come through a great deal of trial and error and experiments. The restrictively narrow power granted by the government to the TRAI has led to encroachment by judicial bodies on the regulator’s sphere of operation and also made the regulator complicit in government’s policies. The issue of net neutrality as practiced in India in comparison with the practice internationally is also analyzed.
