The Centre on Tuesday made it clear that it will not allow services of Facebook’s ‘Free Basics’ in the country following the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) recommendation on banning discriminatory (differential) pricing for data services by various stakeholders.

“The very concept of differential pricing on data – whether it is Facebook’s Free Basics or any other model – is plainly not acceptable. I have communicated this in Parliament and at various public forums that the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, fully respects the freedom of expression, and discourse of social media and Internet,” Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, told BusinessLine . He said the Centre is committed towards digital inclusion and therefore, such intrusion should not come on the way of its development.

“When we are expanding digital India across the country and taking extraordinary steps to empower the people through technology to create a knowledge economy, such model is not acceptable,” he said.

TRAI on Monday had ruled out prohibition of ‘discriminatory tariffs for data services’, which means telecom service providers (TSPs) or companies like Facebook cannot vary on the basis of type of content being accessed by users. Prasad said Internet must have linkage with locals and must be available without any discrimination.

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