BSNL to play around with tariffs

Sudarshana Banerjee

NEW DELHI: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. is expected to come up with an alternate tariff packet which will offer the customer 'flexibility and value additions.' The PSU is expected to file the new tariffs with the TRAI this month. Although official sources in BSNL confirmed this, Prithipal Singh, MD, BSNL, refused to comment on the issue.

The TRAI chairman, M S Verma, said that BSNL was well within it rights to do so, like it had been offering a different rate plan to its rural and urban subscribers. On asked whether this rate package will affect the consumers, Verma vehemently denied same. "The slash in long distance will amply compensate," he said. There were, however, no answers to the question as to what percentage of the average consumer calls long distance, and how frequently.

TRAI had recently announced its new tariff order that has an increase in basic phone rentals, a reduction in call duration, as also a reduction in the number of free calls with effect from April 1, 2003, though long distance rates had been slashed.

The monthly rental under the TRAI recommendations is Rs 280 (Rs 250 earlier) in urban areas, call duration is two minutes (three minutes earlier). Free calls have been halved to 30 a month from 60 in the urban areas (from 75 to 50 in rural areas). However there are no changes in the rentals for rural areas, which varies from Rs 70 and Rs 120 depending upon the capacity of the telephone exchange.

In semi-urban areas with exchange capacity of 30,000 to 99,999 lines, the rental is scaling up to Rs 200 from the existing Rs 180. In the long-distance calls segment, for a distance between 0 to 50 km, calls would be treated as local calls. Beyond that, operators would be free to decide the tariff subject to a ceiling of Rs 8.40 per minute. Even for international long distance calls, operators would have freedom to determine the tariffs.