The Hindu Business Line : ADC cut not enough to tackle ILD grey market: TRAI

THE Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has said that the grey market in incoming international long distance calls cannot be addressed by reducing the arbitrage opportunity. Admitting that the one rupee reduction in access deficit charges announced recently on incoming ILD calls would not do much in tackling the huge grey market, the telecom regulator said that the issue needs to be addressed through proper monitoring mechanism.

Mr D.P.S. Seth, Member TRAI, said, "Grey market cannot be addressed by reducing the arbitrage available to illegal international operators but by stronger monitoring and penalty mechanisms. Any attempt to reduce the arbitrage on ILD calls must not overlook the goal of providing affordable local calls tariffs in rural areas." TRAI, in the new ADC regime had brought down the charges on incoming calls from Rs 4.25 a minute to Rs 3.25 a minute. The move was criticised by the industry on grounds that the reduction was too less, since illegal operators were getting to route the calls for as low as Rs 2 a minute. Both cellular and basic operators had said that despite the reduction, the gap in arbitrage between domestic and international still constitute a significant incentive for illegal routing. "While TRAI has dropped the charges on ILD calls by one rupee, it has also decreased the charges on domestic calls by 50 paise. So the gap has only reduced by 50 paise and not by a rupee as being projected," said an international carrier.

Mr Seth, however, said that since a significant chunk of the ADC, used for supporting rural telephony, is being collected on long distance calls, any further reduction on the arbitrage could jack up the local tariffs. "The best solution would be to merge ADC with Universal Service Obligation and moving to a revenue share regime. But this can only be done when the fund available in the USO is completely disbursed by the Government," said Mr Seth.

TRAI said that it has set up an expert group to recommend guidelines for setting up a vigilance mechanism to monitor under-reporting of traffic by international operators. "BSNL has also written to TRAI that the monitoring system being adopted by the Department of Telecom was bearing results," said Mr Seth.

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ADC cut not enough to tackle ILD grey market: TRAI

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