New Delhi, March 6: The department of telecommunications (DoT) will soon take action against Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd and other private operators for violating licence conditions.

The DoT got a shot in the arm when the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) directed Reliance Infocomm to pay up Rs 150 crore for routing the international and STD calls as local calls and thus held that its home country direct service is not legal.

The home country direct service is a method whereby an operator can use a network abroad to send and receive calls directly into its network in India, without going through that of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL).

DoT now plans to initiate action based on the responses from private operators to the query sent last month to ascertain whether there has been a violation of licence condition because of the practice of masking international and STD calls as local calls.

While refusing to spell out whether action will be taken against MTNL, a senior DoT official said, ?How can we differentiate between one company and another? If it is established that a violation has been committed, action will be initiated against the violator.?

The issue arose from charges levelled by BSNL that Reliance Infocomm uses the home country direct service method to avoid the access deficit charge (ADC). The ADC is given to BSNL for offering service in rural and inaccessible areas.

Sources said, ?DoT may not initiate action against other operators soon since Reliance Infocomm has already indicated that it will approach the Supreme Court. Any action that could precipitate a fall in foreign direct investment (FDI) is unlikely to be taken by the government.?

Private operators like Idea, Bharti and Hutch refused to comment on the allegations of DoT for violation of licence conditions.