Subscribers owe Rs 3,407 cr to BSNL and MTNL

Minister for Communications Ravi Shankar Prasad gave that figure to the Lok Sabha today

State-run telecom firms BSNL and MTNL have total outstanding dues of Rs 3,407.39 crore from their subscribers as on December 2014.

Minister for Communications and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad, in a written reply to the Lok Sabha, said the outstanding dues in respect of landline and mobile services of BSNL stood at Rs 2,520.31 crore and Rs 887.08 crore for MTNL as on December 31, 2014.

A total amount of Rs 25,341.48 crore has been recovered from BSNL subscribers (landline and mobile) in the last three years and current year till December 2014. About Rs 7,577.07 crore was recovered from BSNL subscribers in 2011-12, Rs 6,563.70 crore in 2012-13, Rs 6,436.23 crore in 2013-14 and Rs 4,764.48 crore in 2014-15 (up to December 2014).

For MTNL, Rs 736.25 crore was recovered in the last three years -- Rs 195.76 crore in 2011-12, Rs 189.25 crore in 2012-13, Rs 237.68 crore in 2013-14 and Rs 113.56 crore in 2014-15 (up to December 2014).

In another reply, Prasad said, "The government as approved a project for Rs 98.2 crore to strengthen the email infrastructure. Once implemented, the new email system will provide for 50 lakh email ids for government users across the country."

On February 18, the government had notified the email policy which said email service provided by NIC should be used for all official communications.As per the policy, government personnel have been barred from using private e-mail services for official communications and government officials will be allocated two e-mail ids -- one based on designation and the other on their name.

Also, Indian subscribers pay lower rates for calls made to other networks compared to users in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, China, Australia and the US. "As per the ITU World Telecommunications/ ICT indicators 2013, telecom tariffs in India are one of the lowest in the world," he added.