Speaking at the Economic Editors conference, Communications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said the newly set up Bharat Sanchar Nigam would set up call centres to provide information to customers and make applications available free of charge.

Paswan also announced that finalisation of guidelines on bidding for the fourth operator in various cellular circles by December. And bidding would start thereafter. Bidding for unlimited players in basic circles would start by next month, the minister announced.

Currently, there are two operator in each cellular circle and the recently formed Bharat Sanchar Nigam would be the third operator. In the basic telecom sector, the government has already announced unrestricted entry.

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) would launch its GSM cellular services in Mumbai and Delhi only by January owing to a delay in finding locations for setting up base stations. In Delhi, out of the 140 base stations, only 60 have been finalised and the rest was in the process of locating, Paswan said. Meanwhile, the government has issued instructions to MTNL against launching the GSM services before commissioning all base stations as this could lead to inconvenience to customers, he added.

On opening up the National Long Distance sector, Paswan said the government was in the process of finalising the agreement to be signed up with the entrants in the sector. The draft agreement is under finalisation by the law ministry and, once it was cleared, the companies could begin submitting their applications. Meanwhile, four companies have applied under the infrastucture category to offer dark fibres.

Regarding the increase in bandwidth capacity, he said, the government was working out a programme to take the total capacity to 2.5 gigabytes within a few years.

To make transfers and shifting of phones easy, the government has decided to accord the highest priority to such applications and simplify procedures for shifting local, inter-exchange and intercity telephones, he added. Procudures for restoration of telephones disconnected due to non-payment of bills would also be simplified.

Phones at hospitals and police stations would not be disconnected completely for non-payment of bills, but would be allowed the facility of recieving calls.

Paswan said telephone bills payable through cheques would now be accepted on Sundays and Saturdays at select payment centres such as Central Telegraph Offices.