BSNL's plea on tariff accepted

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India today accepted Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd's submission that the 54 per cent tariff reduction in the 64 Kbps domestic bandwidth was not viable.

Trai said new tariffs for this bandwidth would be announced within a month. The existing annual tariff of Rs 96,000 will be retained until May-end.

On April 24, the regulator had reduced the annual ceiling for 64 Kbps leased lines to Rs 44,000 and said the new tariffs would come into effect from May 1.

BSNL, the sole provider of the 64 Kbps leased lines in the country, had said the reduction was "below cost" and could "force it to discontinue the service".

According to Trai, BSNL had submitted that 64 Kbps circuits were being provided through classical circuits and the new managed leased line network (MLLN) based circuits. The cost of MLLN was significantly higher than those notified by Trai.

"MLLN is a different service for which the authority has had no prior submission. Neither was cost data available. The authority has therefore decided to retain the previous ceiling for 64 Kbps circuits provided through MLLN technology for one month, within which it proposes to fix cost-based tariff for this new service. For traditional 64 Kbps and N*64 Kbps circuits, the revised ceilings will continue," Trai said.

BSNL executives welcomed the decision.