Telecom tariffs in India lowest in world: ravi Shankar Prasad

Telecom tariffs in India are one of the cheapest in the world and the subscribers here pay less than users in the US and Australia, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

Indian subscribers pay lower rates for calls made to other networks compared to users in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, China, Australia and the US, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

"As per the ITU World Telecommunications/ ICT indicators 2013, telecom tariffs in India are one of the lowest in the world," he added.

However, a comparative chart showed that an Indian pre-paid customer pays peak rate of $0.015 for a minute-long call to subscriber of same service provider, while the same in Sri Lanka is $0.009 a minute.

More than 90 per cent of the over 94 crore mobile subscribers in India are pre-paid users.

"Tariffs are offered by service providers taking into account several factors including inputs costs, level of competition and other commercial considerations," Prasad said.