Telecom Lead India: State-run
BSNL has offered a discount of 1 percent to its customers to clear dues. The
service provider wants to restore over 50,000 landline connections that were
earlier closed for nonpayment of bills.
These dues have piled up to Rs 7 crore in Pune district. The
deadline for clearance has been fixed as March 31. However, BSNL also said if
the people whose connections have been suspended fail to pay the bills by March
31, the company will issue them notices and even file court cases.
We have recovered the instruments but the subscribers had
to pay on their own which they have not done and the discount will help them
clear the dues,” said a BSNL official.
According to senior BSNL officials, the special discount
scheme is applicable for 4 lakh working connections.
The percentage of non payments and closures in the landline
category of phones was negligible compared to the new people who are taking the
service of the telecom operator. Recovery in the landline category was nearly
99 per cent for the last six months. The recovery has improved from the time
the closures were made,” said Yashwant Singh, general manager, finance, BSNL.
As per the BSNL circular the special discount will be
adjusted in the next bill. However, the discount scheme is not being made applicable
for the PCOs.
The scheme could not be offered to the PCOs as they work on
commercial lines with the telecom provider and are given commission for
bringing business to the company.
The scheme has been formulated to boost recoveries.
According to officials, BSNL first stopped outgoing and incoming services
before the connections were closed down,” said Mamata Joshi, BSNL chief
accounts officer.
Recently, BSNL
posted 8 percent decrease in revenue to Rs 29,688 crore in 2010-11 against Rs
32,045 crore in the previous fiscal, according to results posted on BSNL’s
website.
