Staff Reporter :
The cost of mobile phone usage is going up from tonight as the national board of revenue has already sent statuary regulatory order (SRO) to all mobile phone operators soon after placing the proposed national budget for 2019-20 fiscal in the parliament on Thursday. Shahed Alam, chief corporate and regulatory officer of Robi, confirmed media that they have received a letter and said the additional incremental supplementary duty to be impacted from the early hours on Friday.
The mobile operators already started upgrading their system in-line with the new order and the new charge will be effective from zero hours on Friday. Currently, the supplementary duty is being charged at five percent which will be 10 percent. The customers are paying 15 percent value-added tax and 1 percent surcharge for phone calls and other usage, except for using the internet. For using the internet, the vat rate was 7.5 percent while other rates were unchanged but from now on the supplementary duty has been increased to 10 percent.
Many experts of the digital industry came up hard on the government for such a move which will directly create an impact on around 10 crore customers. As of April, there are 16.05 crore active mobile connections in the country according to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. Taimur Rahman, chief corporate and regulatory affairs officer of Banglalink termed the move as unfortunate and said, “We urge the government to reconsider the issue to ensure the technological advancement of the country and to fulfill the dream of transforming the country into a digital one.”
