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A Staff Writer in Bombay

The Department of Telecommunications, the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited have jointly announced the introduction of their India Direct Service.

It will assist Indians travelling abroad to make calls to India using the services of an Indian operator.

T O D A Y

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DoT Member (Services) P S Saran explains that it is similar to USA Direct and other home-country direct services that are available to foreign travellers in India.

India Direct allows Indians travelling abroad to make international calls to India that are charged in rupees in India.

To use this service, a person in a foreign country calls a unique number and is connected automatically to an MTNL operator in Bombay.

The MTNL operator will then pass the call on to the desired number in India, having first checked that the called party is ready to bear the charges.

Amitabh Kumar, acting chairman and managing director, VSNL, has said that the service would be particularly helpful to Indian students overseas and Indians travelling on business or vacation.

Another important benefit, Kumar points out, is that since the caller is dialling from a public pay phone or a private phone in the foreign country, he or she would only be using enough foreign currency for a local call.

In fact in some countries the special India direct number is toll free.

At present India Direct services are available from 16 countries:

Country	Access Number
Australia	1800551191
Bahrain	800991
Belgium	080070091
Israel	18009494910
Japan (KDD)	00539911
Japan (IDC)	006655091
Japan (JTC-ITC)	004411911
Malaysia	8000091
Singapore	8000910941
South Africa	0800990091
Taiwan	0080910091
UK (BT)	0800890091
UK (C&W)	0500890091
USA	18889100700
Denmark	80010091
Finland	0800110910
Germany	0130869100
Portugal	0800800910
UAE	8001191

More countries will be getting on-stream shortly. The called party has to pay depending on the duration of the call at operator-assisted international outgoing call rates.

The minimum charge is a 3-minute call plus a call surcharge of one minute irrespective of whether the call is 3 minutes or less.

For every additional minute or part thereof, a full minute will be charged.

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