Govt rejects BSNL plea for Rs 1,000cr compensation for MNP

The government has turned down telecom PSU BSNL's plea for a compensation of Rs 1,000 crore to implement the Mobile Number Portability regime that allows users to transfer their cell phone numbers from one operator to another.

And it is likely that the state-run operator would miss the deadline of December 31 set by the government to launch the MNP system in the metros.

"With regard to the compensation to BSNL to the tune of Rs 1000 crores which the PSU had sought, as per the extant instructions, all service providers have to implement MNP at their own cost and no compensation is to be provided to any operators", said a senior Department of Telecom official.

BSNL along with the other PSU MTNL have earlier informed the government about their inability to implement the MNP system before April for a variety of reasons such as limited time to tweak the technology, tariff plans and billing among others.

The two telcos are in the process of purchasing MNP Gateways. MTNL has floated a limited tender for MNP.

In comparison, private service providers are at various stages of implementing the MNP.

The government has set a December 31 deadline to implement the MNP system for the metros and June 2010 for smaller cities and other areas.

The DoT even set up a coordination committee with BSNL and MTNL and two MNP service providers -- MITS and Synverse -- so that the plan is not derailed.

But BSNL cited a slew of impediments that ranged from a lack of a draft inter-connect agreement to issues regarding tariffs for off-net and on-net as its network will not support differential charging.