CHITRAL, June 14: The people of Chitral have expressed concern over high rates fixed by the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) for the calls made within the district.

According to the PTCL rules, a telephone call made within the range of 25km is charged as local but this is not the case in Chitral.

The distance between Chitral city and Mastuj town is 110km for which a 15-second call makes one unit but strangely enough it is equivalent to that of a call made between Chitral and Peshawar having a distance of 365km.

Likewise, the call rates for Chitral-Booni and Chitral-Drosh are also exorbitant and are nearly equal to that of call made to Peshawar from here.

It is interesting to note that a call made from Booni to Mastuj is considered local as the distance is 24km, but the call from Mastuj to Booni is non-local and 19 seconds are charged for one unit.

The telephone subscribers here have also not been provided the facility of quarter and half-rate package as the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited maintained that the intra-district calls are local.