State-owned telecom operator BSNL has announced a hike in its tariff starting December 1, 2019. The move comes after Airtel, Vodafone and Jio recently announced to increase the tariff in the coming days. The Supreme Court's judgment on AGR has become the latest trouble for the private telcos.

The telecom companies are increasing the tariff in order to bring in more investments to help cope with the financial stress due to the Supreme Court's AGR ruling.

The Supreme Court in its latest verdict on the has asked telcos to pay all the dues to the Indian government within a period of three months. The operators are required to pay up to Rs 92,000 crores to the Department of Telecom (DoT).

According to an ET report, BSNL could increase the tariff from December 1, 2019 and is currently reviewing its voice and data tariffs.

The government recently gave a green signal to the merger of BSNL with another debt-ridden company MTNL. The government has also given a nod to the much-awaited 4G spectrum allocation to the companies. The government plans to put in a sum of Rs 29,937 crore in the MTNL-BSNL revival plan with the combined assets of the two companies worth Rs 38,000 crore to be monetized. The two companies will raise a sovereign bond of Rs 15,000 crore for their revival. The allocation of 4G spectrum would be 2016 prices.

"The cabinet also approved an attractive VRS package for the employees which has been slightly tweaked from the original Gujarat model. The government will provide 4G spectrum on an administrative allocation basis. The cabinet has also given in-principle nod to the merger of BSNL and MTNL and till modalities are in place, MTNL will be a subsidiary of BSNL," Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a cabinet meeting.