Mobile surcharge takes effect today

The government yesterday imposed a 1 percent surcharge on the use of mobile phone, the proceeds from which will be spent on healthcare and education.

The surcharge will put extra pressure on the users who are already paying 15 percent value added tax and 3 percent supplementary duty on their phone bills.

The surcharge takes effect today, according to a gazette notification by Internal Resources Division under the finance ministry.

The government announced the plan to impose the surcharge two years ago.

“We received the SRO (statutory regulatory order) in the evening. We are trying to comply with the order as early as possible although there are some technical challenges,” Mahmud Hossain, chief corporate affairs officer of Grameenphone, told The Daily Star yesterday evening.  

Due to the VAT, supplementary duty and the new surcharge, a user actually will get talk time of Tk 83.72 against a top-up of Tk 100.

The surcharge will bring the government an additional Tk 250 crore to Tk 300 crore.

Currently six mobile operators' combined annual revenue stands at around Tk 25,000 crore, which is growing 10-15 percent a year.

The surcharge comes as an extra burden on subscribers as the government already imposed a 3 percent supplementary duty on mobile phone bills in the budget of the current fiscal year, said Mustafa Jabbar, a former president of Bangladesh Computer Samity, a platform of ICT companies.

Jabbar said the move will negatively impact the industry. “We never expect this type of a decision from this government.”

As of January, Bangladesh has 12.19 crore active mobile connections while 5.34 crore SIMs are connected with the internet.

The government first proposed to impose the surcharge in the budget of fiscal 2014-15.

Parliament on November 15 last year passed “Development Surcharge and Levy (Impose and Collection)” bill. While placing the bill in parliament, Finance Minister AMA Muhith said it would be possible to collect Tk 140 crore from the surcharge.