After Tata Docomo, India’s biggest telecom giant – Bharti Airtel increased its price for prepaid plan in six circles by 20%.

On Friday, Bharti announced increase of call rates and SMS charges by 20% for six circles including Delhi, Kerala and Gujarat. After Tata Docomo pioneered to increase its prices for two circles, Bharti become second company to increase its price.

Telecom companies are under high pressure as 3G spectrum bought last year has increased their costs and the interest paid on the debt for broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum is increasing their expenditure. Airtel has already restructured itself. The move to increase prices will elevate company’s revenue and will tackle falling profits.

“Telecom is probably the only industry where despite increasing inflation, tariffs have been falling. Continuously declining margins, high 3G and BWA prices, constrained spectrum and rural rollout aspirations leave us with little choice but to make some price corrections,” said spokesperson for Bharti Airtel.

The new tariffs will affect Advantage and Freedom prepaid plans for calls within same network. Pricing of Advantage plan has been increased by 10 paisa per minute i. e. it will now cost 60 paisa per minute. Freedom plan increased by 0.02 paisa per second, i. e. instead of paying 1 paisa per second, a user will have to pay 1.2 paisa per second now.

Other mobile companies quiet zipped their talk for the moment, but speculations are they may increase their tariff soon