Introducing mobile use surcharge

The proposal of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) for having a law to curb long and unnecessary usage of mobile phones over and above normal call charge, published in most local English dailies on February 16, should be implemented. It will reduce electricity consumption which we are short of across the country.

Curtailing time and frequency of recharging will discourage misuse of mobile phones for long duration only for gossiping and idle chatting to pass the time of the day. It is tantamount to misuse of mobile phones on a regular basis.

The normal call rates may be limited for a call for maximum of five minutes' duration. For use beyond this time limit, charges could be logged in twice the normal call rate for the next five minutes and double of that rate for every subsequent minute thereafter. This will discourage unnecessarily longer calls.

Such surcharge will also provide additional source of revenue for both the mobile phone company as well as the government. The revenue so collected may be shared on 50:50 basis between the phone company and the government.

This surcharge may be introduced, say from April 1 next, after giving sufficient notice to the public over the newspapers, radio and television so that everyone knows about it. This will also provide the needed time for the mobile phone operators to change their billing programme to suit the new rates.

Engr. S.A. Mansoor,

Dhaka