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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, JULY 31: India’s 135-year old communication links with the UK — that’s how long ago the first telegram was exchanged between Calcutta and London — was close-to-snapped a few weeks ago, with the state-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) disconnecting all telecom traffic between the two countries through British Telecom (BT), which carries around 70 per cent of the global telecom traffic on this circuit. If consumers haven’t been hit yet, it’s because this is currently being diverted through other carriers such as Cable & Wireless.
The issue now threatens to blow into a diplomatic tussle between India and the UK if it is not settled urgently. The unprecedented move by VSNL to come down harshly on BT is an action which has not been taken against any country’s telephone traffic carriers in a long time. Normally, these issues are extremely sensitive as they are bilateral issues settled between operators on both sides, but since VSNL is predominantly a government-owned company, the Communications Ministry has now been alerted to launch a damage control exercise.
It appears that VSNL was forced to take this decision after 6 to 8 months of trying to get BT to pay it dues of around $ 40 to 50 million (Rs 175 to Rs 220 crore) for the period 1999-2000. BT disputes this, and the matter has not been resolved so far. VSNL, which was losing monthly interest of a few crores a month on this disputed amount, clearly was not in a mood to wait any longer and snapped connections.
While the disconnection of BT which is a major carrier of telephone calls between UK and India with a share of over 70 per cent of this traffic, customers have not so far been directly affected as alternate traffic carriers are being used.
The issue of the dispute was confirmed by VSNL’s Director Finance R S P Sinha. While refusing to confirm the exact amount involved, Sinha said that it was a dispute on traffic which was being sent by BT not directly to India but through other countries including the US.
“This results in VSNL having to pay transit charges of these calls to other countries’ carriers while normal settlement of traffic is done bilaterally between carriers of two countries,” Sinha told The Indian Express.
For example, for calls carried by BT between UK and India, VSNL and BT have a pre-determined Tarrif Accounting Rate (TAR). For calls from UK which are route through other countries, VSNL has to pay transit charges from its own share of the TAR. It is this issue which is at the bottom of the dispute between VSNL and BT.
