Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), the seventh largest telecommunications company providing in India, has slashed its tariffs for landline and mobile services.

The new tariff will come into effect from Wednesday. All local calls from BSNL postpaid mobile network has come down from Rs. 1.20 (2.7 cents) to Rs.1 (2.3 cents) per minute, while subscriber trunk dial (STD) call rates have come down to Rs.1.20 and Rs.1.40 (3.2 cents) within the BSNL network and to any other service provider, respectively.

BSNL had to cut down its charges significantly to match its competitors who have attractive schemes to woo their users. According to BSNL, its STD rates will now be the cheapest in India at 80 paise (1.8 cents).

The public service utility (PSU) also slashed its fixed line STD rates by 50 percent. BSNL will charge its users a flat rate of Rs. 1.20 for calls to any place in India per minute. Telco’s rural consumers will be charged 80 paise a minute.

Being the first company to make headway in rural India, BSNL plans to continue to provide cheap rates for this market. BSNL also plans to provide a choice of two BSNL numbers so that consumers can make local calls at 20 paise (.4 cents) and STD calls at 60 paise (1.4 cents) per minute. BSNL offers roaming rate of Rs. 1 per minute for all incoming and outgoing calls. The outgoing STD calls are charged at Rs. 1.50 (3.5 cents) and SMS will be 50 paise (1.1 cents).

BSNL services include wireline, CDMA mobile, GSM Mobile, Internet, broadband, carrier service, MPLS-VPN, VSAT, VoIP services and IN services. BSNL has grown to become one of the largest public sector units in India within a period of five years. X