NEW DELHI, aug 15: The Telecom Commission has decided to withdraw the charges for leased line payable by paging companies. Paging companies were required to take leased dedicated lines from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on which callers called up to leave their messages which were to be relayed to the paging company's subscribers.

Last year, the DoT had clubbed paging companies alongwith other "commercial" users of leased lines like E-Mail companies etc, and levied double charges on them. With the full Telecom Commission's decision to withdraw these charges, the paging companies are likely to find some relief.

According to Pravin Kumar, President of Indian Paging Services Association (IPSA), this was among the most minor demands of the paging companies. But the fact that the DoT had finally decided in favour of these companies was a welcome sign, he said. He said that paging companies had been demanding the roll back of these charges as in any case these lines were being used only for a one-way transmission where paging companies only received calls on these lines and did not make any calls themselves, the double charges were unjustified. In fact, Pravin Kumar said, the DoT should refund these charges to the paging companies for the last two years as they had been charging this unjustified rate. Some of our demands have been pending with DoT for almost two years which have still not been implemented even after an "in principle clearance" by DoT, IPSA chief stated.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.