The entire Opposition in the Rajya Sabha united against the hike in telecom rates, but failed to elicit any assurance of a rollback from Telecom Minister Arun Shourie on Thursday.

''The revision of rates was done by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and it was protected by the law passed by the Parliament,'' he told the agitated members during Question Hour.

The Opposition members were on their feet and criticised the government for the hike in the telecom tariffs of calls made from landlines to mobile phones.

They demanded an immediate rollback of the tariff hike. Shourie said that at the most he could convey the feelings of the members to the chairman of TRAI.

Rajya Sabha chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat at this point asked the minister if the government was authorised to change the decision made by the TRAI.

The minister said as per the law in the case of protection of sovereignty, integrity, security and safety of the country and public order and morality, the government could overrule the TRAI order.

The minister said that to extend rural telephony in the country, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited needed funds to the tune of Rs 29,000 crore (Rs 290 billion) during the next few years. How can it generate resources without hiking the tariff, he asked.

He also sought to clear the confusion that the pulse rate of fixed phone to mobile phones had been lowered, while tariff in other services was more or less unchanged.

Earlier,  Shourie told the House that out of 12 million mobile phone subscribers in the country, 2.5 million belonged to BSNL.

He said the BSNL had started its service at 2,60 places, including district headquarters and small towns as well. BSNL had plans to launch its cellular services in the near future in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and the North East telecom circles, he said.

UNI