The Hindu : Partial rollback of phone tariffs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 14, 2003

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Partial rollback of phone tariffs

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 13. Bowing to political populism and electoral considerations, the Central Government today persuaded the two state-run phone companies to effect a partial rollback in tariffs.

The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has increased the number of free calls for both urban and rural subscribers. It also increased the pulse rate for calls from fixed to mobile phones. The Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited has also doubled the number of free calls for its subscribers. There was no need for MTNL to revise the pulse rate which is already 60 seconds. The announcement was made by the two CMDs, Prithipal Singh and Narendra Sharma, in the presence of the Communications Minister, Arun Shourie, here.

Free calls will be implemented from May 1, while the new pulse rate comes into effect from Saturday. Thus, instead of charging Rs. 1.20 per 30 seconds for calls from fixed to mobile phones the new rate from May 17 will be Rs. 1.20 for a one-minute call. The pre-May 1 rate was Rs. 1.20 for a three-minute call. The BSNL has also increased the number of free calls for urban areas from 30 to 50 and for rural areas from 50 to 75.

Making it clear where the directions for the partial rollback came from, Mr. Shourie invoked the authority of the BJP president, Venkaiah Naidu, twice during a news conference to explain the impact of these decisions.

The stage was set for a rollback after a meeting on Monday chaired by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and attended by the Deputy Prime Minister, L. K. Advani, the Union Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, besides Mr. Naidu and Shourie took stock of the unrest in Parliament and outside over the new phone tariffs.

Being a strong proponent of the market economy, Mr. Shourie was articulate about his distress over the fourth rollback since 1999.

"Whenever there is an attempt at reforms, be it in power, banking or labour, the political class lets loose a volley of this kind. Then consequences of this order follow (losses by the BSNL)." He did not disown culpability but felt the tendency of political compulsions impacting attempts at rationalisation of tariffs was a "serious matter to ponder over".

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