Last year, the revenue loss on the account of tariff revision, was Rs 2,200 crore, when compared with the budget estimates for 1999-2000. According to Paswan, the effect of the reduction in revenue on DTO, due to tariff rebalancing, can be compensated by market borrowings, in terms of raising of bonds to that extent.

Earlier in March, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had postponed the second phase of tariff re-balancing by four months, following a request from the DTS to review the Telecommunications Tariff Order 1999 (TTO'99), which prescribed a further reduction in long distance charges with effect from April 1, 2000.

According to the TRAI, DTS has communicated to the Authority that DTS after the first phase of tariff rebalancing, a further reduction in charges, should be reviewd so that DTS does not face further loss of revenue. To conduct the required review, the TRAI had requested for relelvant data for the financial year 1999-2000 from all operators. In order to get the inputs from operators and for its analysis, it has deferred the second phase of tariff rebalancing by four months vide Telecommunications Tariff (Seventh Amendment) Order 2000, in March 2000. However, last week, TRAI decided to postpone rebalancing by yet another month, to August 31, since it had received the data only very recently, and needed more time to process .