Govt plans meet to settle CPP row out-of-court

Calcutta, Nov 9: Union telecom ministry is trying to arrange a meeting between the officials of the Department of Telecommunications DoT...

Calcutta, Nov 9: Union telecom ministry is trying to arrange a meeting between the officials of the Department of Telecommunications DoT, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam LtdMTNL and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Trai for an out-of-court settlement of the row over the calling party pays CPP regime.

The Union minister of state for telecommunications, Tapan Sikdar, told reporters at a press conference here on Tuesday that he has taken this initiative. quot;I have asked the officials of these three organisations to come forward and try to find a solution to the present imbroglio,quot; he said.

The CPP regime was supposed to take off from November 1 but Justices SN Variava and SK Mahajan of Delhi high court passed a stay order on October 28 in response to a public interest litigation filed by a consumer organisation, Telecom Watchdog, and a writ petition by MTNL.

Under the CPP regime, incoming calls for cellular phone users would have become free while calls from basic to cellular phones would have costmore than local calls.

MTNL protested against this arrangement fearing loss of revenue. The matter will be heard again on November 16 at the Delhi high court.

Without divulging further information on the proposed meeting quot;as the matter is sub judicequot; Sikdar added: quot;All these organisations are related to the telecom industry. So it is better to have the differences sorted out among ourselves.quot;

On Tuesday, Sikdar held a meeting with the officials of West Bengal telecom circle and Calcutta Telephones to take stock of the progress made in rural telephony in the state.

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quot;In India we have six lakh villages and out of it three to four lakh villages are connected. About 2.5 lakh villages are yet to be connected. In West Bengal out of the 38,337 villages, 16,552 are already interconnected, which turns out to be a 43 per cent coverage. On April 1, 1997 there were 462 rural exchanges in West Bengal and till date the number has been increased to 700,quot; the minister said.

He also mentioned that the government isgoing ahead with the target of connecting all Indian villages by 2002.

quot;By the end of the current financial we will give 45,000 more telephone lines in the rural sector. In the first seven months we have given 3,000 new connections. West Bengal8217;s villages will get 5,000 new telephone connections by this financial year,quot; Sikdar said.

According to him, in some states the density of rural telephony is as high as 80 to 90 per cent and in some states it is as low as 20 to 30 per cent.

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Sikdar said his office has convened a meeting of all private telephone operators both in the cellular and basic services to discuss ways to improve telephone services in the country.