Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Apr 07, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Apr 07, 2004 |
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Info-Tech
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Telecommunications Industry & Economy - Consumerism Consumer forums protest ADC on mobile operators Our Bureau
New Delhi , April 6 EVEN as subscribers of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) are rejoicing at the recent tariff cuts announced for ISD and STD tariffs, a clutch of "consumer and welfare organisations", have sought the intervention of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to do away with the "access deficit charges" that would allow private mobile operators to offer similar incentives. In a letter to the Union Communications Minister, Mr Arun Shourie, the organisations under the aegis of the Consumer Coordination Council, noted that the ADC restrictedhe benefits of free and fair competition from being passed on to the consumers of telecom services and sought to derail the benefits to public at large, contrary to the policy objectives envisaged by a policy of economic liberalisation by the Government. "The access deficit arises in a situation where the cost of local calls is fixed as ceiling tariffs by the telecom regulator and the cost of providing those local calls is more than the tariffs prescribed as ceiling tariffs. The ADC has traditionally been levied to fund the low priced but high cost fixed services offered by the incumbent operator in a telecom economy. Earlier, TRAI used to fix the ceiling tariffs for fixed line services for both the urban and rural areas. Now the tariffs for the urban areas have been forborne and left to the market forces to decide, and TRAI has defined the ceiling tariffs for basic services only in the rural areas. With the tariffs being forborne and left to the market forces in urban areas, there is no need for an access deficit charge in the urban areas. As for the rural areas access deficit, if any, it can be met from the universal service obligation fund", the letter notes. While there is no accounting separation in the accounts of BSNL, it had been charging the consumers very high and monopolistic tariffs in the domestic and international long distance calls prior to the opening up of the NLD and ILD sectors. There is absolutely no justification to give an ADC to MTNL, which operates in the most lucrative metros of Delhi and Mumbai and has no subscribers in either semi-urban or rural areas, the council said. The common man on the street who is using a mobile phone should not be forced to subsidise the niche urban subscribers of fixed line services as the MNCs and the business establishments, the letter stated.
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