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New Delhi , Jan. 7

BHARAT Sanchar Nigam Ltd, on Friday, said that it would have to review its rural telephone project in the light of the new Access Deficit Charge regime. The state-owned company said that the new regime announced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India would result in a Rs 1,254 crore loss.

"With the reduced revenues from ADC as per the new regime, BSNL may now have to review some of the projects which may hamper growth of services in rural areas and of other socially desirable but economically unviable projects," BSNL said in a statement.

As per BSNL estimates, the ADC should be Rs 11,200 crore which will only increase with the addition of rural telephones.

"The new ADC regime will not only affect our development activities but also adversely impact the roll-out of our services in rural areas as well. It is worth mentioning that BSNL has incurred expenditure of the order of about Rs 40,000 crore from 2001 to 2004 in rural telephony and socially desirable projects and had ambitious plans for the current year and future as well to fulfil the Government objective to achieve the envisaged rural tele-density targets for overall economic growth of the country," BSNL said.

The company said that it has to provide rural telephones at the tariff of Rs 50 per month only against average cost based rental of Rs 361 per month. "After unification of licences the private sector has shed all responsibility to provide rural telephony and the entire burden is being borne by BSNL only," the statement said.

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