The Hindu Business Line : `DoT cannot force hotels to lower STD rates'

HERE'S some bad news for business travellers and tourists who frequently criss-cross the country but have still not activated the `roaming' facility on their cell-phones.

Despite the sharp fall in STD rates, hotels can continue to bill them "atrocious" amounts, making a national long-distance call even more expensive than international calls.

According to official sources, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), which took up the issue with the Ministry of Tourism, has been told that there is absolutely no legal framework that can stop the hotels from charging their customers higher telecom tariffs. Calls from the hotel room have always been regarded as a "premium value-added service", and the customer is expected to pay up the extra bit if they want to use the hotels facility.

The issue had caught DoT's eye, when a couple of telecom service providers made a representation that the hotels should be forced to share a part of the "extra" revenue that they earn from telephone calls made by the customers, or charge only the actual call rates and drop the extra levy that is the norm at present. Even consumer groups had complained about this and had sought that the Department work out new policy measures so that the hotel guest no longer hesitates to make calls from the room.

The organisations had pointed out that there is a distinction between what the Department recovers from the hotels and what the hotels in turn add on as their overheads.

For their services, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) and other private basic service providers recover from the hotels the normal charges of a telephone.

Even if one complains to the concerned hotels or the consumer courts, it is the responsibility of the hotels to explain how they are adding on to the basic cost and this is an area where DoT should intervene, they had stated.

They accepted the fact that since it would be difficult to convince hotel associations to reverse the present phone rates being charged by them, there are other alternatives which could be explored — one solution being the use of virtual calling cards (VCC).

At present, many hotels do not even allow the use of calling cards. It could, therefore, be made mandatory to permit the use of VCCs in the hotel premises. However, the hotel associations have stated their inability to do so to the DoT, the sources noted.

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