MTNL, TRAI will go for out-of-court settlement: Paswan

BANGALORE: The Government has initiated the process for an out-of-court settlement of cases between Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in matters like calling party pays (CPP), said communication minister Ram Vilas Paswan.

Mr Paswan said that matters like calling party pays (CPP) should be resolved among the concerned parties without going to the court and, therefore, he was planning to convene a joint meeting of TRAI, private service providers and Department of Telecommunication (DoT). He also added that the new tariff announced by TRAI had affected the revenues of MTNL and about Rs 2,000 crore loss has been estimated to DoT.

He also hinted at bringing necessary amendments in the TRAI Act, if required, to give more powers to it. On the proposed entry of DoT as third cellular operator in various telecom circles, Mr. Paswan said DoT had planned to launch mobile services at few places by mid next year and based on TRAI's recommendations the number of private telecom operators in the basic telephony would be increased. He said the government was committed to open the domestic long distance call for private competition from January 1, 2000 for which TRAI was yet to give recommendations.

On the postal department, Mr Paswan said that government would open one post office in every village with a population of 3,000 and at a distance of every three kms. There are still 1,10,000 gram panchayats without post offices where postal services have to start immediately.