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Our Bureau

New Delhi , Nov. 14

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has rationalised call charges for its PCO booth users. As per the new tariffs, the calls from PCOs to any network and to anywhere within a State will be charged uniformly at Re 1 per minute with a 60 second pulse.

Tariff for STD calls from GSM technology based PCO booths have been reduced to Rs 2.50 per minute from the existing Rs 3 per minute.

The minimum guarantee amount for local PCO booth owners has also been reduced from existing Rs 500 to Rs 300 per month in urban areas.

Allotment policy

In addition to the above, BSNL has also liberalised the policy for allotment of PCO booths. Those who are running private operator's PCOs can also take franchisee from BSNL.

The move is aimed at stemming its falling market share in the PCO segment. Private operators are growing in this segment at an aggressive rate and have overtaken the state-owned PSU.

As per the data from the TRAI, the total number of PCOs has now crossed the 4.5-million mark. Over the last 12 months, over a million PCOs have been installed across the country. Reliance and Tata Teleservices with 173,529 and 57,000 additions, respectively, during this period, witnessed the maximum growth, followed by BSNL with 48,529 new connections. BSNL's market share has slid to 46.92 per cent as on June 2006. BSNL had a market share of 68 per cent in March 2005.

The tariff for GSM PCOs will be applicable from November 15 and all other tariff changes has been made applicable from November 1.

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