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| Friday, 20 February 2004 |
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CPP to increase Govt expenditure by 20% By Shirajiv Sirimane The introduction of the Caller Party Pay system (CPP) will increase the government's expenditure in institutions by over 20 percent. According to the President of the Telecommunications Regularity Commission Tilak De Silva, 99 percent of government institutions use Sri Lanka telecom phones. The introduction of the CPP would result in an increase of call charges to cellular phones. He said that the aim of the CPP was good but the implementation was not right. In India the charge from a fixed line is only 50 cents while a call charge from a mobile to a fixed line is around 1.50. "In Sri Lanka this has been reversed," he said. De Silva said the increased rates would also result in the closure of many pay phone booths and communication centres. He said that the irony of the CPP is that people who now enjoy 200 units free would have to pay if a single call is taken to a cellular phone. " Now any call made during off peak hours (9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) would be billed as a nine-minute unit. However if the CPP is introduced there would an additional Rs. 1.60 per unit for each minute which is unfair. Another point raised by the Union was the fact that though most mobile operators offer free incoming calls in the night, under the CPP the fixed line operator would have to pay event for that. He said in short a person taking a call from a fixed line to a mobile would have to pay Rs. 11 plus VAT, an increase of Rs. 5 to the bill. The end result would be that the SLT, communication centres, and coins box operators would go out of business. He said no study has been published by the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission and the Unions they have planned a series of measures to check this. The CPP was never imposed in China Singapore and many other countries and there is no evidence to suggest that the number system has increased the number of phone users. |
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