Under pressure from various political parties including key members of the NDA coalition, demanding roll-back in telecom tariff, Communications Minister Arun Shourie said on Friday the matter was for the prime minister and deputy prime minister to decide.
While pointing out that there had been no tariff increase with regard to hike in monthly rentals or lowering of pulse rate for landline-to-landline calls, he said state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd would lose about Rs 1500 crore (Rs 15 billion) on account of not hiking the telecom tariffs in line with Trai stipulated standard tariff plan.
On May 7, key members of the NDA coalition -- Shiv Sena, JD (U) and Samata Party --had walked out of the Lok Sabha demanding rollback of telephone tariff hike amidst uproarious scenes during Question Hour.