It seems like the Free Basics issue is far from being resolved. Late last year, it could be recalled that Facebook's initiative, Free Basics, has been suspended in India. Prior to that, the social media began its campaign to save its initiative from being booted out of the country by asking its users to show their support by sending the Telecom Regulator Authority of India (TRAI) messages stating their support to the social network.

However, it seems like the social media's Free Basics campaign backfired as TRAI is now asking the respondents to the net neutrality consultation paper to comment on specific issues, instead of just following or using the template provided by Facebook in its campaign. TRAI has also extended the deadline for submission of comments until Jan.7.

TRAI said that a large percent of the recorded number of 18.27 lakh responses or comments are only about supporting the social media's product, "Free Basics," but do not manage to also answer the bigger issue, which happens to be the different pricing that is concerning net neutrality. TRAI Chairman R S Sharma in a way indicates that the consultation process might have been hijacked. Sharma is quoted to have said "It is like we have asked Question X and they have given answer to the Question Y."

Sharma said they have received 8.9 lakh responses supporting the social media's initiative where the supporters only left their mobile numbers, while 5.44 lakh comments have been received through the Facebook mail, so about 14.34 lakh are suspicious comments. There were supposed to be no problems; however, when they were asked for a response to a specific question on the differential pricing, they were surprised to receive support for Free Basics instead of an answer to the question asked by TRAI. So they are a bit confused how that could answer the question.

The chairman further adds that one of the approaches they were thinking before was to just ignore the responses, but it seems unfair to be ignoring the responses because people made the effort and time to respond and submit their comments, which was why they have extended the deadline for the submission of responses instead.