Maqbul Hasan has been plying a rickshaw for over 20 years in Dhaka city now. He bought a mobile phone about three years ago. He recharges it for 20 to 30 taka after every two or three days. Every time he recharges it, he has to pay an extra taka. That is, if he pays 20 taka, he gets a 19 taka recharge. Why is he given one taka less? His simple answer is, "The recharge-wallas keep one taka."
This is the same for everyone who, like Maqbul, recharges their mobile with small sums of money. There's a sort of unwritten rule that one taka is cut if the recharge is for less than 30 taka. But the mobile operators say it is illegal to charge this extra one taka.
According to the mobile phone service providers, every day there is a Tk 20 crore (Tk 200 million) to Tk 22 crore (Tk 220 million) transaction in electronic recharging. That mean, every month there is at least Tk 600 crore (Tk 6 billion) in such transactions. This amounts to Tk 7200 crore (Tk 72 billion) a year. All of this is accounted for, except for the small amounts that come out from the pockets of the general public to recharge their phones.
A survey of 10 divisional towns and districts, including Dhaka, shows that almost everywhere the recharge businessmen take this extra charge. In this way, the retailer makes at least an extra 100 taka a day. In the smaller, towns this amounts to at least 50 taka.
The SIM card used to recharge mobiles is called the 'recharge SIM'. Grameenphone has 300,954 such recharge SIMs all over the country. The number of recharge SIMs of all the operators combined all over the country is over 800 thousand. And about 14 lac (1.4 million) people are directly involved in this sector, including distributors and officers and employees of the recharge operators. Grameenphone alone has around 500 thousand people involved.
According to persons involved recharging, if 100 thousand recharge businessmen make an extra 20 taka each a day, that means the general subscribers are having to pay an additional Tk 20 lac (Tk 2 million) daily. In a month this stands at Tk 6 crore (Tk 60 million). In a year this totals Tk 72 crore (Tk 720 million). In reality, the amount of additional money made by the recharge retailers is much more.
The retail rechargers get 2.75% per cent from the mobile service providers for every one thousand taka they recharge, that is Tk 27.50. City Cell and Tele Talk pay a 3% commission, that is Tk 30 per every thousand taka in recharge. The retailers consider this inadequate. In India this commission is also around 2.5 to 3 %.
Badruddoza, the general secretary of Bangladesh Mobile Phone Recharge Business Association, said, "The commission we receive is negligible in today's market. We have submitted our demands, including for an increase in commission, to FBCCI and to the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh AMTOB." Concerning the extra charges being made, he said, "If there is any such complaint against a member of the association, action will certainly be taken."
Some of the recharge retailers justify this additional charge, saying that the commission received is not enough for a living, not even enough to pay the shop rent. They are forced to charge extra.
Robi's spokesman Mohiuddin Babar told Prothom Alo, "This additional charge can not be supported. We pay the rechargers their due commission. If any recharge retailer of ours resorts to such unethical practice, we request our respected subscribers to call Robi at 158 toll free and inform us about their complaint."
Mobile phones can be recharged in many other ways, such as scratch cards, mobile phone accounts with the bank, through the websites, through SMS and so on. Robi users can also do this through ATM machines now.
However, Grameenphone's public relations head Syed Talat Kamal feels that the electronic recharge, or Flexiload, is the easiest method. About the additional charges made by the retailers, he told Prothom Alo, "Grameenphone sells its products at the maximum retail price (MRP) and the retailers get a commission based on this. Grameenphone has no connection with any additional charges made outside of this."
Subscribers see this as a manipulation by the recharge retailers. Subscriber Jahangir Alam of Moilapota, Khulna, said, "They don't even inform us that they are taking an additional charge. In several instances I have paid 25 taka, but they recharged 24 taka and so I was deprived of certain special offers. Why should this happen?"
A senior official of Banglalink said, the retailers or distributors cannot charge the customers extra. They request their subscribers to refuse to make any extra payment.
The residential halls at Dhaka University are an example that this extra charge cannot me made if the subscribers are alert. The recharge retailers in those areas are too scared to the students and the student leaders to charge them extra. But it is different in the other areas near the university, such as Shahbagh, Nilkhet or Chankharpool. Extra charges are being made there as in most other areas of the city. In the labour belts of Gazipur and Savar the rate of charging the customers extra for recharging the mobiles is even higher than elsewhere.