The government on Wednesday said 'IndiaOne', which envisages a single call rate across the country and doing away with difference between local call charges and STD tariffs, would be implemented from January 2006.
"IndiaOne regime will come into effect from January next year," Communication and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran told reporters, while inaugurating equipment manufacturing facility of telecom PSU ITI in Rae Bareli.
Calling within the country will be like calling within a state, Maran said. This is a significant move aimed at bringing parity in telecom among all states in India. The ministry has already removed such a difference, which existed only in four states due to historical reasons, he said.
In June, DoT had announced that calls between Chennai circle and Tamil Nadu circle, Kolkata-West Bengal and Mumbai-Maharashtra would be treated as local.
Till then, calls between the three metro cities and their respective states and the two parts of Uttar Pradesh were treated as long distance calls and the consumers had to pay for roaming. Under the new facility, calls from mobile-to-mobile and fixed-to-mobile has become local.
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