Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd said on Tuesday that it has filed the alternate tariffs for basic telephony services with the telecom regulator Trai.

BSNL chairman and managing director Prithipal Singh however, declined to divulge the details on the packages that have been filed by the corporation.

The corporation had earlier said its alternate packages were aimed at offering "flexibility and value additions" to its subscribers.

This would be in addition to the standard package for basic services, for which Trai had announced its new tariff order in January ushering in an increase in basic phone rentals, reduction in call duration and sharp curtailment in number of free calls with effect from April 1, 2003.

Trai had announced a hike in telecom tariffs by increasing the monthly rental to Rs 280 from Rs 250 in urban areas and reduced the call duration to two minutes from the existing three minutes, while making all incoming calls free on cellular phones.

Free calls have also been halved to 30 a month from 60 in the urban areas while in the case of rural areas free calls have come down to 50 from 75.

In the rural areas, there would be no change in the monthly rental and would remain at Rs 70 and Rs 120 depending upon the capacity of the telephone exchange.

While in semi-urban areas, with exchange capacity of 30,000 to 99,999 lines, the rental would go up to Rs 200 from existing level of Rs 180.