Telcos slam BSNL penalty

Private telecom operators have said that the BSNL's recent decision to impose on them a levy of Rs 15,000 per annum for additional interconnect points was unjustified because the PSU had fixed the charges without any discussions.

"The charges fixed by BSNL are unilateral and arbitrary and have been done without any discussions with operators. This must be discussed with operators to work out a reasonable amount. There is no reasonable ground for levying the charge retrospectively," said the Association of Unified Service Providers of India (AUSPI), the body representing all basic service providers.

The PSU had imposed the levy on all e1 links which were the primary links connecting private operators to BSNL. AUSPI also criticised the PSU's recent directive that all operators should make provisions for HDSL modems and also convert their passive point of interconnection (PoI) with BSNL to active links by December 2005.

BSNL executives, however, said they had an agreement with other operators and it could impose a certain levy per E-1 link.