Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) on Thursday revised the pay-by-date, upper threshold limit of non-payment of dues for landline, broadband and Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) connections. The operator is said to have had a review of its existing policy on pay-by-date, threshold limit as the BSNL management is said to have considered ways to “maximize cash flow and collection efficiency.” It was said that the BSNL management with its revised policy seeks to “minimize the volume of unpaid bills.” The revised policy also introduces a new schedule of disconnection for non-payment (DNP) such as barring of outgoing, incoming calls along with a new date for permanent disconnection upon non-payment of dues.
BSNL Revises Pay-by-Date and Schedule of DNP Across India
The new pay-by-date for BSNL users in the South Zone is said to be the 15th day from the date of invoice. The operator highlighted that its users in other zones will have the 18th day from the invoice date as the revised pay-by-date.
BSNL currently sets 21 days from the invoice date as the due date to all its users across India. The state-run operator bars the user’s ability to make outgoing calls on the 35th day from the invoice date across India. Further, the incoming calls are said to be barred 30 days after the barring of outgoing calls while users will face permanent disconnection in 90 days after the barring of outgoing calls.
Under the revised schedule unveiled on Thursday, BSNL will bar the outgoing calls on the 22nd day from the invoice date to the users in the South Zone upon the non-payment of dues. The incoming calls to the BSNL South Zone users will be barred 15 days after the barring of outgoing calls. Further, the BSNL users in the South Zone will face permanent disconnection in 60 days after the barring of outgoing calls upon non-payment of dues.
Meanwhile, the BSNL users in Rest of India will be barred from making outgoing calls on the 28th day from the invoice date. However, the barring of the incoming calls along with the date for permanent disconnection to the BSNL users in Rest of India are identical to the dates offered to the users in the South Zone.
Crucially, it was said that the revised pay-by-date and schedule of DNP to the BSNL users in Rest of India will be applicable from the bills generated in September 2020. The BSNL users in South Zone will continue with the existing payment schedule till the end of October upon which the users will be transitioned to the new billing dates. The revised pay-by-date and schedule of DNP will be applicable to BSNL landline, broadband and FTTH users.
It has to be noted that the BSNL wireline operations are divided into four zones including South Zone, East, West and North Zone. The BSNL South Zone is said to consist of multiple BSNL circles such as Andhra Pradesh including Telangana, Tamil Nadu including Chennai along with Karnataka and Kerala. BSNL classifies Andaman and Nicobar Islands with West Bengal in the East Zone.
BSNL Revises Upper Limit Threshold Limit for Non-Payment of Dues
The state-run operator has also revised the “dunning threshold” limit for the BSNL landline, broadband and FTTH users. The dunning threshold limit is the upper threshold limit of the billed amount for which a telephone connection or a service such as broadband and FTTH will not be disconnected for non-payment.
The existing threshold limit for landline, broadband and FTTH connections is said to be Rs 525 per connection for the BSNL users in the urban areas. Further, the BSNL users in rural areas have a threshold limit of Rs 325 per connection.
Under the revised limits, BSNL has reduced the threshold limit to Rs 300 per connection for those BSNL users in the urban areas. Similarly, the operator has reduced the threshold limit to Rs 200 per connection for the BSNL users in the rural areas.
The revised threshold limit for the landline, broadband and FTTH connection are said to be effective from the September 2020 billing issue to users across India.
