Reduce telecom charges further: A. Raja

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Union Telecommunications and IT Minister A.Raja today called for further reduction in the telecom charges and increasing rural tele-density.

In a meeting with the telecom operators here, the minister said that the tariff reduction is possible if the operators reduce the termination charges voluntarily and boost infrastructure sharing.

“I had made a political commitment three years back that local call charges would be ten paise per minute and national long distance call will be 25 paise. We have asked operators to reduce tariff by relaxation in termination charge and boosting infrastructure sharing,” he said.

Earlier in October, Manoj Kohli, Deputy MD, Bharti Airtel had also expressed that there is further scope for reduction of tariff, if government bring in relaxation to the existing tax structure that an Indian telecom subscriber has to pay.

He had mentioned that 31 paise on every rupee spent by consumer goes as tax and if the government reduces these taxes then call rates would come down. However, no sops had been offered to operators for reducing tariff and they have been asked to do it voluntarily.

In this meeting Raja also formally consulted with operators the way USO Fund can be utilized using new rules to increase rural tele-density.

As it was reported by CIOL last week, Raja had mentioned that government is seriously considering extension of USO Fund support to private operators to achieve government target of 40 per cent rural tele-density by 2014.

On this day, Raja has tentatively proposed to provide USO Fund subsidy as refund to operators for constructing BTS in rural area where there are no BTSs. The new rules are yet to be finalized.