Pay Rs 25 lakh for services, BSNL tells RCom

A day after RCom protested disconnection of telecom services by BSNL, the Haryana circle of state-run telecom today said it has asked the Anil Ambani Group company to pay Rs 25 lakh as restoration charges to restore its telephone services in the state.

"We have demanded from RCom the payment of Rs 25 lakh, which are restoration charges and it is to be paid by RCoM as per the Interconnection User Agreement," a senior BSNL official said today.

"Until the restoration charges are paid, the telecom services to RCom will not be restored," the official said.

However, he added RCom had yesterday paid Rs 1.87 crore of pending dues.

BSNL had disconnected 345 Point of Interconnection (PoI) with RCoM last month in Haryana for non-payment of Access Deficit Charge (ADC) for the period between November 2004 and February 2006.

Subscribers of both BSNL and RCom are unable to call up on each other's network since the disconnection.

BSNL had also disconnected PoI with RCoM in Punjab. RCom has 3.96 million subscribers while BSNL has 4.18 million customers in the Punjab and Haryana circles.

RCom had yesterday accused BSNL of breaching the terms of interconnect agreement by disconnecting the Point of Interconnection (PoI) in Punjab and Haryana.

Further, it announced it had made a payment of Rs 533 crore towards full and final settlement towards interconnection with BSNL. In addition to the above, payment of Rs 55 crore has also been made under protest.