ISLAMABAD, Feb 7: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is reviewing the Calling Pay Party (CPP) regime to reduce tariff and provide relief to the general public.

This was said by the PTA chairman, Maj-Gen Shahzada Alam Malik, in an interview on Thursday.

He said the final decision to this effect would be announced after a thorough discussion with all parties concerned and stake holders. According to the CPP agreement, he said, the package was to be reviewed every year, therefore, “the PTA is reviewing it, and, hopefully, the tariff will soon be reduced”.

Under the package, Rs3.68 per minute were to be paid by the callers, dialling cellular phone numbers through the PTCL. Out of this amount, the PTCL retained Rs1; mobile phone operators, Rs2.2; and Rs0.48 were collected as government taxes.

The chairman said the PTA was facilitating the cellular companies to improve their standards in accordance with the international parameters.

In this regard, he said he had also organized a forum in Karachi. The Authority is also discussing this matter with the companies concerned, besides conducting a survey on consumers’ complaints.

He said action would be taken against all those companies that failed to improve the quality of their services. He said the issue of annual royalty with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) had also been settled without going into any litigations, as the royalty was further reduced from 1.5 per cent to 0.66 per cent on the gross revenue.

Earlier, it was reduced from four per cent to 1.5 per cent to promote information technology in the country, he added.

To a question, he said, the issue of card pay phones had also been resolved and the private phone-card companies would now pay two per cent royalty on their revenue.

There is also some reduction in the rates of pay phones, he said, adding, the PTA was also introducing some reforms to regulate the cable system in the country.

The chairman said, generally, the banning of Indian channels had been appreciated, and the people responded positively to this step. He also advised the cable operators to refrain from relaying indecent programmes, having negative effects on the society, specially on youths.

The Authority, he said, had a close liaison with the representatives of cable operators, and was trying to resolve their problems on priority basis.

Gen Alam said the Authority had established a complaint cell to monitor and ensure provision of quality services to the users of telephone, mobile phone, cable TV, internet, card pay phone etc.

“We have received a very good and positive response from the public as their complaints are dispatched to the respective departments within two days for quick resolution”, he added.— APP