CAOI demands 50% cut in ADC

Cellular operators have urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to reduce Access Deficit Charge by 50% to Rs 1,600 crore for 2007-08 . In their communication to Trai, COAI, the body representing all GSM operators, has demanded that the incidence of ADC should be completely removed from the domestic consumers, and for 2007-08 , this levy be recovered only from incoming international calls.

Currently ADC (the levy paid by all telecom operators to state-owned BSNL to sustain its rural operations) is charged on all STD, ISD and also on incoming international calls. Operators pay 1.5% of the annual aggregate gross revenues (AGR), Rs 1.60 per minute for all incoming international calls to India and Rs 0.80 per minute for every outgoing ISD call, towards ADC.

Justifying the demand, COAI has represented that as per Trai’s estimates, India will receive 11,376 million minutes of incoming international calls 2006-07 which was a growth of 47% over the previous year. If the same growth rate was maintained, incoming ILD traffic for 2007-08 will be at least around 16,745 million minutes. On this basis, CAOI has projected that an ADC of Rs 1 per minute on incoming ILD calls will be sufficient to meet the ADC requirements for 2007-08 .