The new national telecom policy, which has been approved by the union cabinet, will abolish the roaming charges.

The abolition of roaming charges will allow subscribers to use their numbers from one part of the country in another without worrying about additional charges. The union cabinet gave its approval to the new telecom policy after making minor changes to the policy that will determine the way in which telecom industry is regulated by the government.

Ambika Soni, minister for information and broadcasting announced that the National Telecom Policy has been approved and will now replace rules thaw were formulated a decade ago. The government moved to create a new telecom policy after the growing sector was hit by a spectrum auction sandal leading to a loss of multi billion dollars to the government in lost revenues.

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said, "The target is one nation full mobile number portability and working towards one nation free roaming.” The government is planning to ask the telecom services providers to stop charging roaming charges to their subscribers within the country.

The roaming charges will take some time to be removed as the Department of Telecom will first prepare a mechanism for the phasing out of the charges. Experts say that the move will greatly benefit the consumers but will negatively impact the telecom service providers in the small term.