Taking head-on the private cellular operators, state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd on Friday announced up to 60 per cent reduction in tariffs for cell-to-cell long distance calls.

Cell-to-cell STD tariffs have been fixed between Rs 1.80 per minute in the plan with monthly rental of Rs 1000 and Rs 1.90 in the plan with monthly rental of Rs 250.

Bharti had recently announced Plan 0, 1, 2 wherein the tariff for local call on cell-to-cell was fixed at one rupee and cell-to-cell STD call at two rupees with monthly rental of Rs 399, which includes free airtime of Rs 100.

As per MTNL's new tariff plan, charges for a local call between cell-to-cell has been reduced to just Rs 0.30 a minute for the plan having monthly rental of Rs 1000 while local call to fixed line and WLL phone will cost Rs 0.60.

In the case of a plan with a monthly rental of Rs 250, local call on cell phone will cost Rs 1.60 while on fixed and WLL phone it will be Rs 1.90 a minute.

STD charges on fixed line and WLL phone will depend upon the distance. For distance up to 200 kms, STD call will cost Rs 1.90 in the lowest monthly rental plan.

For distance between 200 to 500 kms, the STD call would cost Rs 2.90 and Rs 3.90 for distance beyond 500 kms.

Tariff for Short Messaging Service has been fixed at Rs 0.80 per SMS.