Carriage charge is a fee paid by telecom operators to BSNL to carry their long distance voice traffic for both fixed and mobile telephones.
Today was the last date for BSNL to comply with the TRAI order for which the regulator had sent a clarification to the company on May 17.
TRAI had written to BSNL asking it to levy only 20 paise as carriage fee for calls irrespective of the distance. At present, BSNL charges a carriage fee of 65 paise per minute uniformly for all the distance slabs except the distance slab of 0-50 km for which the carriage charge is 20 paise.
In case of handover of calls by cellular operators to BSNL at terminating long distance segment exchange, BSNL charges a flat rate of 30 paise per minute for termination of calls throughout circle.
BSNL continued to take the position that charges will be governed by ceiling carriage fee of 65 paise a minute as specified in the February 23, 2006 TRAI order.