The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has suggested the setting up of an access deficit charge fund to finance the subsidy on local calls.

The fund will be on the lines of the Universal Services Obligation Fund, whereby a uniform part of the operator's revenues will accrue to it.

At present, access deficit is recovered by levying a cess on call tariffs paid by the consumers. According to the proposal, access deficit will continue to be recovered through call tariffs in the initial one to two year period, after which the fund will be set up.

All the operators will contribute uniformly to the fund, irrespective of the call tariffs. Trai is expected to announce its ADC policy on Wednesday .

A senior Trai official said: "Ultimately, we want to move towards the setting up of an ADC Fund. This will remove all the complexities in imposing access deficit charges on call tariffs."

According to Trai officials, setting up a fund will remove the burden on the consumers and result in lower tariffs. Under the present system, costs go up since the access deficit is levied on the tariffs. It also differentiates the types of calls.

For instance, the access deficit charge on a cell-to-cell call is different from that of a cell-to-fixed call or a WLL-to-cell call.

On the other hand, if the deficit is recovered from the licence fee given by the operators, there will not be any additional burden either on the operator or the consumer. It will also not create any differentiation among the type of operator since all operators will be required to contribute the same fraction.

For instance, both cellular and WLL operators shell out between 8 per cent and 12 per cent of their revenues to the government as licence fee. Five per cent of this is taken out for the USO Fund. The government may decide to keep aside another 2-3 per cent of the revenue for ADC Fund.

Access deficit is the gap between the cost incurred by the fixed-line service providers like BSNL and the revenue they get. The gap arises due to the government policy of subsidising local calls to make them affordable.