Friday, February 10 2006 15:48 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: A maximum tariff of Re 1 per call anywhere in the country under the 'OneIndia' plan announced by state-run BSNL and MTNL would help put a check on fixed-line phone surrenders, which was enormous last year, Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran today (Feb 10 2006) said.

"The Re 1 a minute STD tariff should be able to check the surrender of fixed phones of the PSUs which happened on a large-scale last year due to the surge in mobile usage. Now mobile and landline tariffs are same in this plan this will plug-in the surrenders," Maran told sources here.

The minister also said he expected 'a lot of' voice traffic to be generated following the rock-bottom tariffs that should amply compensate any possible revenue loss occuring due to the tariff reduction. Maran says he does not think there is any revenue loss due to these schemes.

"The talk of a loss of about Rs 3000 crore due to this plan is over and over-exaggerated. Even if there is any minor loss it will be more than compensated due to traffic increase," he said. Rather, the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) would range between Rs 450 to Rs 500 which is considered to be very good in the industry, he said.

Asked whether he had proposed duty cuts for the telecom industry in the forthcoming budget, Maran said "I have recently lowered revenue share on STD and ISD. Finance Minister P Chidambaram is much more progressive than all of us and I am sure he will come out with many pleasant surprises."

The Minister also indicated that the existing complicated STD codes might be simplified with this tariff plan.