Days before the telecom regulator was expected to announce a second downward revision in Access Deficit Charges (ADC), the Department of Telecom (DoT) has asked it to keep all such plans in abeyance.In a letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Chairman Pradip Baijal, Telecom Secretary J.S. Sarma has asked it to not take any decision on ADC.The informal ban stays until the government works out its own action plan on the matter, which will depend on fresh inputs from Trai as well. The latest ‘‘order’’ asks Trai to give its views on ADC to the DoT, within a week. The move queers the pitch for telecom subscribers, since the private operators who pay ADC charges, have always assured that lower ADC payments will translate into lower call charges. Trai’s plans to cut ADC — is part of its long-term strategy to completely withdraw the levy — have come a cropper. Of late, Trai and DoT have been dangerously at loggerheads, and the regulator has even courted being slammed with ‘‘Section 25’’—a section of the TRAI Act that will ostensibly allow DoT to impose its will on the ‘‘independent’’ regulator.By recent indications as well, Trai appears determined to reduce ADC to nil, a move that could wield a body blow to state-run telecom operator BSNL, which gets Rs 2,000-4,000 crore every year from the proceeds. Trai thinks ADC must be shunted out, keeping time with increasing teledensity, stiff competition and increasing market-friendliness of the rural markets. All these factors, it believes, are steadily obviating the need for any subsidy such as the ADC.In keeping with its usual procedure, Trai has held ‘open house sessions’ to seek views of the industry and other stakeholders on latest ADC review as well. For now, Trai, it appears, is not against converting ADC to a revenue-based model instead of the current system of charging it on every call. ADC is a fee levied from private telecom operators to compensate BSNL and MTNL for running rural services.
