BANGALORE, INDIA: Not be left behind in the mobile tariff war, the public sector BSNL and MTNL is planing to 10 paise/mts tariff plan.

Communications Minister A Raja confirmed this during the launch of 3G Services in Bangalore last week. “I have already made an assurance in the parliament in this regard. The new attractive tariff plan will come to effect in a month's time,” Raja said.

“Except for telecommunication, the prices for every other sector have gone up. Today, an average person can make a call throughout India in just 25 p/mts., and we shall try to bring this down to 10 p/mts. in three months time, and that’s when we launch another new feature of ours”, said Raja.

With the launch of the 3G Services and introduction of new attractive tariff the BSNL is hoping to rope in new customers. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited's Director (Consumer Mobility) R K Agarwal told PTI that in the next fiscal year (2010-11), State-owned BSNL is planning to add 22 million (2.2 crore) cell phone subscribers. BSNL has already announced its foray into the mobile banking and advertising space.
According to Agarwal, BSNL currently has 8.5 lakh 3G mobile subscribers, “a number that's set to go up to one million (ten lakh) by next month-end”, adding that average revenue per user (ARPU) from 3G subscribers is 40 per cent more than their 2G counterparts.

“BSNL's aim for the current financial year (2009-10) was 1.8 million mobile connections, of which it had already achieved 1.4 million”, he said, adding that mobile services business for the year ending March 31 was expected to be Rs. 10,500 crore.