Consumers owe BSNL $1 billion

NEW DELHI: With consumers owing BSNL over $1 billion and MTNL over $300 million in unpaid landline and mobile bills, the Parliamentary standing committee on information technology has slammed the telecom PSUs over their poor track record in collecting these arrears.

Both telcos have now been asked to 'resort to all possible and acceptable measures to recover the outstanding dues'.

BSNL has to recover Rs 4,178.28 crore in unpaid bills, of which Rs 3,628.57 crore is from its landline users while Rs 545.71 crore is accounted for by its mobile customers while MTNL has Rs 1,218 crore in arrears, bulk of which (Rs 1065.29 crore) relates to its landline users, with the mobile segment contributing only Rs 163.67 crore.

The department of telecom has, however, defended the PSUs and in a 14-point reply told the standing committee that both BSNL and MTNL have already initiated a series of measures, including legal action, to recover their dues.