Mobile firms may spoil govt's OneIndia party

Players likely to launch uniform tariff before policy is unveiled.

Akin to the government's "OneIndia" policy, all private cellular operators are likely to announce uniform call rates across the country. But they may announce this before the government officially unveils the policy.

"With market forces demanding that operators slash tariffs, OneIndia, when launched, may only cater for bringing uniform tariffs for long distance landline calls from BSNL and MTNL," said an executive from the cellular operators' association.

According to the OneIndia plan, the country will have a uniform STD slab for both fixed line and mobile services, irrespective of distance of calls. There may be separate uniform slabs for local calls, which are within a radius of 50 km.

CDMA major Reliance Infocomm has been the first off the block, with its recently-launched "One Nation One Tariff" plan, under which calls to anywhere within the country are charged at Re 1 per minute (Infocomm had a similar plan in place as early as September 2004, for its post-paid users).

Hutch and Idea, too, have been offering STDs for less than Re 1 in select circles since August 2004. Executives of these operators said the reduced tariffs would soon be extended to subscribers across the country.

Besides, all major operators are also drawing up plans to match the Re 1 tariff of Reliance Infocomm, and similar schemes are slated to be launched over the next two weeks.

That apart, the government cannot intervene if private players decide to charge higher rentals in lieu of lower call rates, and that can be a blow to OneIndia. This is evident in Reliance's offer, which is only applicable on an e-recharge of Rs 1,100 for pre-paid and a minimum monthly rental of Rs 449 for post-paid.

If private operators have decided to steal the government's thunder, the policy, when launched, is set to rob state-owned operators of large revenue streams .

State-owned BSNL's executives said the company was likely to face a revenue loss of about Rs 4,500 crore in the first year if "IndiaOne" is implemented. In addition to that, the three-minute local pulse rate proposed in "OneIndia", can send the figure up to Rs 10,250 crore. The next round of reduction in access deficit charges is also slated to commence shortly.

TAKE THE CALL

Reliance Info recently launched One Nation One Tariff, under which calls to anywhere in India are at Re 1/minute

Hutch and Idea have been offering STD for less than Re 1 in select circles since Aug '04

All major operators planning to match Infocomm's Re 1 tariff

Similar schemes may be launched over the next two weeks