Communications minister Pramod Mahajan today took on the role of a mediator between Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and private sector companies on the issue of interconnection for long distance operations.
The minister held separate meetings with Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Group and Sunil Mittal, chairman of the Bharti Group in a bid to resolve the issue which has been hanging fire for six months.
According to top government sources, the meeting between Ratan Tata and the minister lasted for about two hours and focused on the issue of interconnection between VSNL and BSNL for carrying ILD calls. Ratan Tata was accompanied by S K Gupta, managing director, VSNL and N Srinath director (operations) VSNL.
VSNL and BSNL have held talks on revising the revenue share arrangement between the two sides for over two months without much success. Sources said that the ministry of communications had decided to mediate between the two sides as BSNL had threatened to move its ISD traffic originating from its 35 million users to other ILD operators like Bharti and Data Access if VSNL did not match the commercial rates offered by them. "Since the government is a stake holder in both the companies it is important to work out a solution that is in the best interest of both companies. After today's meeting, a resolution now seems possible in the near future," a senior government official said.
According to sources, BSNL today proposed discounts based on volumes for the Tata managed company. They added that VSNL has been asked to respond to BSNL's proposal. Government sources further said that the Tata team also briefed the minister on the controversial investment of Rs 1200 crore in Tata Teleservices envisaged by VSNL. The company's board will meet tomorrow to consider the request of its sub-committee to ask for more time to file its report.
In the meeting with Sunil Mittal, Mahajan has offered to mediate between Bharti and BSNL to resolve the interconnection issue between the two sides for carrying STD calls. While Bharti has been saying that BSNL was offering it tough terms of agreement involving higher revenue share with BSNL, the latter has said that it was justified considering the infrastructure they would provide Bharti.
Sources said that in today's meeting, while Bharti has agreed to put up 18 points of presence across the country for its NLD operations, Mahajan has assured that the issue will be sorted out after discussing it with BSNL.
