Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) has unveiled multi-lingual short message service (SMS) that permit GSM subscribers to send messages in 11 different Indian languages.

While sending SMSes, the newly launched value-added service known as ‘Sarv Bhasha Sandesh’ will let the subscribers to make use of the language of their choice. Now the MTNL GSM subscribers can send messages in English, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Rajasthani, Tamil and Telugu too.

The new service, which is developed by MTNL along with Geneva Software Technology Ltd, is only accessible to postpaid and prepaid customers of Dolphin and Trump.

To access the new service, MTNL users have to download the language-specific applications program originated by Geneva Software Technologies on a GPRS-capable phone. The application program can also be transferred on a mobile phone having Bluetooth, infra-red, or cable facility.

MTNL said that the company will charge Re 1 for both local and STD SMSes from the postpaid users (Dolphin customers), whereas pre-paid users (Trump subscriber) will have to pay Rs 2 for each SMS.

With the launch of this service, Delhi MTNL anticipates a development of about 10% in the number of SMS sent through its network. Moreover, MTNL has also decide to add around 50,000 Broadband customers to its network by March 2008.