OneIndia plan anti-poor: CPM

The CPI(M) has expressed reservations about BSNL's OneIndia plan and decided to take up the issue with the UPA government.

CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said his party was not opposed to the OneIndia plan per se. "The problem is with the impact it will have on poor consumers...We are going to talk to the government about this," he said.

Linking it with the issue of cross-subsidisation, the party said only the rich made long distance calls and would benefit from the scheme. It added BSNL had nothing for the poor consumers, who used landlines and made local calls.

The party has accused Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran of thrusting the OneIndia plan "down the throat of reluctant BSNL and Trai".

A drop in the revenue of BSNL, which provides rural telephony, will hurt rural consumers the most, the party has said.

It has also dealt with this in the latest issue of its mouthpiece, People's Democracy. According to an article, while OneIndia plan lowered tariff for the well-off consumers, the tariff of PCOs, used by the less well-off consumers for long distance calls, had been left untouched. It is still Rs 2.70 per minute, or 170 per cent more than the OneIndia tariff, the article says.

Slashing long-distance tariffs by 58 per cent, a possible loss of Rs 3,000 to 4,000 crore, can only affect BSNL adversely, the party has said. The nigam's revenue will also be hit by lowering of the Access Deficit Charge (ADC) that it gets from other operators.

The charge was slashed to make Re one STD calls possible. The earlier ADC of 30 paise per call used to help BSNL earn Rs 5,000 crore which helped it subsidise rural operations. Trai had finally changed the ADC regime and reduced BSNL's revenue by about Rs 1,800 crore, the article said.

"The net result of all this is that BSNL and MTNL are likely to lose Rs 3,000-4,000 crore of their long distance revenue even after higher landline rentals are taken into account," the article added.

If the problems of the telecom sector are growing rural-urban imbalance and slowing down down of landline penetration, OneIndia scheme can only make matters "worse", the party feels.

"It also has gone back to the old days where the minister and the government decided everything including tariffs," it said, adding that TRAI had fallen in line with the minister (on new ADC regime) after some initial resistance.

Drop in the incomes of BSNL and MTNL is likely to be Rs 5,000-7,000 crore. This could completely erode their profit and have an impact on rural telephony, the party said.