New Delhi: International long distance calls are set to become cheaper from April 1 as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Wednesday announced complete removal of the outgoing access deficit charge or ADC, which is 80 paise per minute at present.
Trai has also reduced the total amount of levy on the private operators for the financial year 2007-08, which is likely to make telecom tariffs fall significantly across the board.
"The Authority expects that the reduction is ADC amount resulting from the order will be fully passed on to the consumers by the service providers," TRAI said.
ADC is a levy mobile operators pay to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) to fund its social obligations like rural telephony, which are not cost-based services.
According to the Trai statement, the total amount of levy (Access Deficit Charge) for the financial year 2007-08 has been brought down to approximately Rs 2,000 crore from the existing level of Rs 3,200 crore.
The ADC on percentage revenue share basis of the telecom operators has also been reduced by 50 per cent.
"Telecom operators would now have to pay 0.75 per cent of their adjusted gross revenues towards ADC from existing 1.50 per cent," TRAI said. The levy would be charged on revenue of access providers generated from rural subscribers.
The new charges would come into force from April 1. Making the announcement, Trai said it will continue to levy ADC on incoming international long distance calls at the rate of Re 1 per minute as against the current level of Rs 1.60 per minute.
During 2006-07, incoming ILD calls accounted for 11.3 billion minutes generating about Rs 1,800 crore. Sources say the total ILD incoming minutes in 2007-08 is estimated to be around 18 billion minutes.
The reduction in ADC is being done as per the roadmap drawn by the former Trai chairman Pradip Baijal, under whose chairmanship the last ADC reduction was made.
As per the plan this will be the last year when ADC will be levied on the telecom operators. From the fiscal 2008-09, ADC would be merged with the Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund, to which all operators contribute 5 per cent of their adjusted gross revenue (AGR).
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