The Hindu Business Line : Charges on ADC `baseless': BSNL

The state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd on Saturday said that the claims made by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on charging Access Deficit Charge (ADC) on a per minute basis was baseless and misleading.

The company said that it supported the regulations announced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India rather than coming in the way of the implementation of One India tariff. BSNL has also called COAI for a meeting on Monday to discuss the issues raised by the private operators.

"It is true that regulation has steeply reduced the carriage charge and BSNL has followed it in letter and spirit and accordingly carriage charge has been slashed down. The BSNL's circular dated 28.2.2006, therefore, supports rather than coming in the way of One India Plan of private operators," said Mr D.P. Singh, Deputy Director General, BSNL. The BSNL response comes after COAI wrote a letter to the company on March 2 alleging non-implementation of the TRAI specified norms on interconnection and ADC. The association had said that BSNL was still charging ADC on a per minute basis and on rural connections.

"The new regulation stipulates a new system of ADC based upon revenue share which has been duly followed by BSNL in the circular and accordingly no per minute basis ADC has been prescribed except in the case of ISD calls which in line with the stipulation of the regulation. BSNL has incorporated in its circular all the exemption of revenues from the rural areas as proposed in the TRAI's regulation in toto. Accordingly, the contention that BSNL is still charging ADC on rural connections is baseless," Mr Singh said in a written statement.

"A meeting with COAI was held on March 2 where in all the issues raised by them were addressed and explained. We are proposing to meet COAI again on Monday so that any persisting misgiving and apprehensions of COAI are cleared. Further, the issue of disconnection of operators is totally misconceived and non-existent. We have reaffirmed from our field units that there is no such move on the part of BSNL," said Mr Singh.

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