Pramod Mahajan, minister for IT today defended Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd by dismissing private cellular operators' claims of BSNL's cellular tariffs being "predatory" saying that the tariffs were approved by the telecom regulator.
"Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had approved BSNL's tariffs. In fact they had sought various clarifications which were provided by BSNL and Trai took five days to discuss it and then only they were approved," Mahajan said.
Speaking to reporters after receiving dividend cheque from Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, Mahajan said BSNL sought Trai's approval despite the latter exempting private operators from such stipulation.
Even Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (Tdsat) stayed Trai's order which made it mandatory for BSNL to get its cellular tariffs approved before launching nation-wide mobile services, Mahajan said. He said that "going by the private cellular operators' wish, BSNL should get their tariff approved from private operators and not the regulator."
Mahajan also said that interests of BSNL and MTNL should also be taken care of while taking any decision on the controversial interconnection issue between them and VSNL.
"This is not a simple problem. VSNL's profitability is going down. If they go in for a market rate, the profitability would still go down and it will create problem for the company. I appreciate their concern but at the same time, BSNL and MTNL's interests should also be taken care of," Mahajan said.
