Tatas told to pay half of interconnection charges to BSNL

08 May 2007

New Delhi: Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) has asked Tata Teleservices to pay 50 per cent of the ''''disputed'''' interconnections charges to state-owned BSNL for all those calls that had no caller line identification during 2003.

BSNL has accused the Tatas of tampering with the CLI to evade payment of interconnection charges.

BSNL said that after scrutinising details of some of the callers it was found that many calls were made from a single number and there were many such cases. It said that there was a large number of tampering.

BSNL''s counsel said Tata Teleservices had admitted of having a fault in its own system, which was generating non-CLI numbers.

BSNL had claimed Rs 10 crore as interconnection charges for some months of year 2003, and has already served notice for disconnection to them. Tata Teleservices challenged this before the tribunal on Monday. The company also opposed that its call data record (CDR) was tampered.

Tatas said that, "BSNL has waited since 2003... They (BSNL) should wait till a solution is found as we are willing to pay them the right sum".