'OneIndia' misses deadline, again

Govt may seek Trai's help to implement and sustain uniform call rates.

The occasion of Republic Day was one for gloom in the communications and IT ministry as its ambitious and "OneIndia" project, stipulated to take off today, missed the deadline.

For Communication and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran, this marks the second instance of the ministry missing its deadline for the policy. Maran had earlier announced that OneIndia would be in place by January 1, before revising the date to January 26.

With the deadline missed, the ministry may be forced to rope in the telecom regulator to implement and sustain uniform call rates across the country.

This is because the restructuring of carriage costs and access deficit charges (ADC), the two key barriers to implementation of the policy, can only be undertaken by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

While it is still possible for the government to bypass the regulator and announce "OneIndia" plan, operators share the view that the move would result in artificially defined tariff cuts, which would have to be sustained by an over 100 per cent increase in urban phone rentals, coupled with a 50 per cent reduction in pulse rates.

Currently, all inter-circle calls in India are charged 30 paise per minute as ADC and between 19 paise and 89 paise per minute (based on the distance) as carriage charges , which makes Re 1 STD calls unsustainable, especially on landline calls, across the country.

According to Trai sources, the regulator is ready to unveil the new ADC policy based on revenue share rather than a fixed amount on a per-minute basis and also put in place a new carriage charge regime, but can only do so after it gets the go-ahead from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

However, an ongoing tussle between the ministry for communications and Trai over the last several months has resulted in the DoT shutting out the regulator from policy discussions on "OneIndia".

Reliance Infocomm already offers STD at Re 1 but the catch lies in the fine print "" post-paid users will have to pay a rental of Rs 449 and pre-paid customers will have to avail of a minimum recharge of Rs 1,100. A similar plan from BSNL comes at a rental of Rs 999 per month. Missed call

Maran had said 'OneIndia' would be in place by January 1, before revising the date to January 26

The ministry may be forced to rope in Trai to implement and sustain uniform call rates across the country

Trai's help may be needed because restructuring of carriage costs and access deficit charges can only be undertaken by it

An ongoing tussle between the communications ministry and Trai has resulted in the DoT shutting out the regulator from policy discussions on 'OneIndia'