Commenting on this significant initiative, minister of communications Sushma Swaraj said that a long-pending demand of telephone subscribers from suburban and rural areas for direct-dialing facility on reduced-call charges with metros and surrounding cities has been fulfilled.

According to an official release, initially local area was restricted to five kilometer radius distance from the telephone exchange or the municipal boundary, whichever was greater. With the revised policy, anomalies in the present system have been removed while allowing the telecom department to save expenditure on operation and maintenance ofsmaller exchanges.

A large number of prominent cities which will benefit from the scheme include Sonepat, Ballabgarh, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad and Noida around Delhi. Besides these cities, the facility has been extended to Vasai, Virar, Bhiwandi, Ulhasnagar, Ambernath around Mumbai.