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Thomas K. Thomas

New Delhi , Oct. 5

THE Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Tuesday said that it would penalise Reliance Infocomm if it is found that the company has violated licence norms in the manner in which it was routing international long distance calls.

Senior Government officials said DoT was examining the complaint of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) that Reliance was illegally routing ILD calls to escape from payment of access deficit charges.

Speaking to Business Line here, Mr Nripendra Misra, Secretary, Department of Telecom, said: "Ensuring compliance of interconnect agreement between the two companies is the responsibility of BSNL. However, the DoT, as the licensor, will take action in the event of any violation of licence norms by any company. The Department is seized of the issue here."

Another senior official in DoT said that a notice had been sent to Reliance seeking clarification before any action can be taken. Theofficialssaid that DoT and Reliance Infocomm had already held a round of discussion to resolve the complaint made by BSNL.

BSNL had served disconnection notices to Reliance Infocomm in at least 30 cities, including Chennai, Mumbai and Pune, for routing international long distance calls illegally. The state-owned company has asked Reliance to immediately pay the access deficit charges, amounting to about Rs 20 crore, on the illegal calls or face disconnection.

According to BSNL's complaint, Reliance was routing international long distance calls into the country and terminating on the telecom major's fixed line network as if it were a local call. It has alleged that Reliance was bringing ILD traffic into the country and then changing the caller line identification number of the caller to pass it on to BSNL's telephones as if the calls were originating from less than 50 kilometres away.

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