New Delhi : The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), in an effort to benefit the end user, Wednesday announced slashing of the access deficit charge (ADC) paid by the service operators to access the services of another operator in domestic long-distance calls.

The ADC, which has been reduced to Rs.20 billion from Rs.32 billion, will be effective from April 1 to March 31, 2008, the telecom watchdog said in an official statement here.

According to TRAI, this move will enable more and more users to use the services due to lower and affordable tariffs. And with reduced burden on them, service operators will now bring out innovative tariff packages attractive to the customers.

On long distance international incoming calls, the ADC has been reduced to Re.1 per minute from the existing Rs.1.60, which marks a reduction of about 38 percent.

TRAI has also done away with the charge levied on operators for outgoing long-distance international calls.

The move has also eliminated the ADC that was charged on revenues of access providers generated from rural wireline subscribers, the statement said.

"ADC on percentage revenue share has been reduced to 0.75 percent from the existing 1.5 percent of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of all service providers i.e. access providers, national long-distance operators and international long-distance operators," the release said.

"This amounts to reduction of 50 percent of ADC on percentage revenue share basis," it added.

TRAI said: "The ADC by its very nature is levied for a limited period, and has been imposed to give all the players a level playing field.

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