KARACHI, March 27: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has failed to stop thousands of public call offices in the city from overcharging their customers.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Wednesday that 40 card payphone companies were registered with the PTA with which, in turn, thousands of public call offices were registered. These card payphone companies were authorized to set up public call offices in the city. They were obligated to follow the tariff laid down by the telecommunications regulator.

According to the tariff laid down by the PTA, a card payphone operator can charge Rs4 for five minutes if the call is made from the public call office to a fixed line phone. But for a nation-wide dialling call from the public call office to a fixed line phone he can charge Rs3.47 per unit. For an ISD call he can charge Rs3.47 per unit. For a nation-wide dialling call from the public call office to a mobile phone he can charge Rs3.47 per unit plus a Rs2.53 per minute premium. All these rates are inclusive of the sales tax.

On visiting the public call offices in Federal B Area, on I.I. Chundrigar Road, in Gulshan-i-Iqbal and Garden East, it was learnt that most card payphone operators overcharged their customers, especially those who made phone calls to mobile phones. When asked why they were not displaying the list of PTA tariff, they said the card payphone company they were registered with did not make it mandatory to display the tariff list.

When a user of a public call office in Garden East was informed that he had paid more for the call he had made to a mobile phone, he said he was not aware of the PTA tariff, adding that while some public call offices charged Rs10 for a one-minute call to a mobile phone, others charged Rs12 for a one-minute call to a mobile phone.

An owner of a public call office in Gulshan-i-Iqbal told Dawn that recently the PTA had reduced the tariff for telephone calls made from a public call office to a fixed line phone. “Previously the tariff was Rs5 for five minutes. The telecommunications regulator brought it down to Rs4 for five minutes. But a lot of people were not aware of this tariff reduction. That is why a large number of public call offices are still charging the previous rates.”

When PTA director Mushtaq Ahmed Bhatti was asked why the telecommunications regulator did not take an action against those public call offices which overcharged their customers taking an advantage of their ignorance of the PTA tariff, he said the PTA could not directly take punitive action against the errant public call offices. He added that the telecoms regulator could punish only those card payphone companies the errant public call offices were registered with.

“Recently the PTA served show cause notices on some 12 card payphone companies whose public call offices were found to be overcharging their customers. Under the Pakistan Telecommunication (Reorganization) Act 1996, the card payphone companies could respond to the show-cause notice in 30 days. If found guilty, they would be fined and their licences could be cancelled.”