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Thomas K Thomas

New Delhi May 3 At a time when competition is being seen as the driver for growth of telecom sector, the Department of Telecom has barred private national long distance operators from carrying intra-circle telephone calls meant for the Government-owned BSNL's subscribers.

In a recent direction to the private operators, the DoT has in effect said that BSNL can continue to exercise monopoly and recover charges from private access providers for carrying the calls within a circle.

So, a telephone call made by an Airtel user in Lucknow to a BSNL subscriber in Agra will have to necessarily be carried on the public sector undertaking's network.

The move has irked the private operators, who are now trying to impress upon the Government to withdraw the order.

Private operators claim that BSNL charges 20 paise per minute for carrying the intra-circle calls, while NLD operators like Bharti are willing to carry the same traffic for less than 10 paise per minute.

"Private NLDO operators who have rollout up to the district level are equally capable of carrying such calls, which then be handed over to BSNL in the respective exchanges for termination on their network. The private access providers have offers from private NLDOs who are willing to carry such calls at half or even less of the charges being imposed by BSNL," said a private cellular operator.

Private operators met DoT officials on Monday seeking a review of the order.

They pointed out that the new direction nullifies the amendment announced by DoT on December 14, 2005, when private NLD operators were allowed to carry and terminate intra-circle traffic.

Private operators said that the earlier amendment would have increased competition and increase choice in the intra circle long distance segment binging affordable services to consumers.

"However, the subscribers were not able to reap the benefits of this facility as despite the above amendment, this facility was not implemented as BSNL did not allow the private NLDOs to terminate the intra-circle traffic on its network.

To add to that the DoT recently issued a clarification to the above amendment, which negated the very objective of the amendment," said a cellular operator.

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